Mississippi Plumes
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/mississippi.html

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Earth Science Picture of the Day


When last checked this resource was offline Our automated link checker has alerted the folks responsible for the part of our site where this problematic link is referenced. If you have further information about the link (e.g. a new location where the information can be found) please let us know.

You may be able to find previous versions at the Internet Archive.

The MODIS satellite image above, taken on March 5, shows sediment plumes moving into the Gulf of Mexico from the main branch of the Mississippi River as well as through the bayous in its delta region. It's easy to understand how our nation's longest river is often referred to as 'The Big Muddy'.

From the end of the last ice age until the mid 1900's, the Mississippi River created more area each year, but the river has been confined in it's levees since a major flood in 1927. The benefits of controlling the Mississippi River extend throughout the watershed because such control reduces the cost of exporting grain from the midwest and importing petroleum from around the world. Such benefits have come at a tremendous ecological cost that are concentrated in coastal Louisiana. Wetland loss there averaged an acre every 20 minutes throughout the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. The most recent estimates are about an acre every 40 minutes. Before the mid 1900's, natural wetland loss processes were slower than natural wetland building processes, but human activities have accelerated wetland loss processes and virtually eliminated wetland creation processes.

This description of a site outside SERC has not been vetted by SERC staff and may be incomplete or incorrect. If you have information we can use to flesh out or correct this record let us know.


This resource is referenced here:Keywords: plumes, deltas, mississippi, river