GSA Today
Volume 33, Issue 10
A false color radar image of a “bird’s foot” terminus of the
Mississippi River Delta (63 x 43 km). Bright spots on the main chan-
nel are ships. Over the past 200 years, upstream Mississippi has been
heavily modified through damming and diversions, and sediment
influx to the delta has been reduced dramatically from 400 to 100-
150 million tons annually. Subsidence has more than tripled in areas
of oil extraction and over 5000 km2 of deltaic wetlands have been
lost since the 1930s. (Credit: NASA/JPL image archives).
© The Geological Society of America, Inc.