Deltas

 

 

Restoring Coastal Resilience

The goal of NCED's Deltas research program is to develop methods to extract quantitative information on structure and dynamics of depositional systems from stratigraphic records and apply this information to landscape prediction and restoration.

 

Hurricane Katrina exacerbated an already severe problem: loss of New Orleans protective coastal buffer.

NCED Deltas field sites and experimental facilities:

For more information on NCED Deltas research, contact:


Jim Buttles
Subsurface Architecture Program Manager
Bureau of Economic Geology
The University of Texas at Austin
University Station, Box X
Austin, TX 78713-8924
(512) 475-9539

 

Featured Stories:


Sediment cohesion strongly influences delta morphology

Traditional geological thought holds that delta morphology is governed by river discharge, tidal range, and wave action. In a recent paper published in Nature Geoscience, NCED Postdoctoral Researcher Doug Edmonds and his collaborator Rudy Slingerland have shown that, contrary to the prevailing tripartite paradigm, the shape and structure of deltas can be strongly influenced by the stickiness (cohesiveness) of their sediments.  
Read More

David Mohrig gives MARGINS talk

NCED Principal Investigator David Mohrig participated in the MARGINS distinguished lectureship program:

David Mohrig: Source to Sink

My research group focuses on the application of sedimentary deposits and transport processes to unraveling the evolutions of submarine and terrestrial landscapes.


Read More

Building New Land in the Mississippi Delta - Is It Feasible?

Can coastal Louisiana’s land loss be reversed, could the land even be rebuilt? A new physically-based model developed by NCED alumnus Wonsuck Kim and principal investigators David Mohrig, Robert Twilley, Chris Paola, and Gary Parker suggests that engineered river avulsions opened below New Orleans could do just that. Using a conservative sediment supply rate and a range of rates of sea level rise and subsidence, the model predicts that between 700 and 1200km2 of new land could be built over the course of a century by diverting 45% of river flood sediment and water discharge through two new avulsions.  
Read More

REU "Team Delta" Learns the Value of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Collaborating across disciplines can be a tricky endeavor. Disparities in viewpoints and terminology across fields can make comprehension and communication difficult. Participants in the NCED Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) on River and Coastal Restoration learned this lesson first-hand during their recent trip to the Wax Lake Delta. The trip afforded the students the opportunity to be involved in Mississippi River Delta (MRD) restoration research, an experience they all recounted with great excitement. The students were surprised however to observe that current MRD stakeholders are often at loggerheads due to cross-disciplinary communication difficulties. In light of their observation, the students expressed increased appreciation for the multidisciplinary nature of their REU experience.
Read More