News
$500,000 for research on Mississippi Delta subsidence
The RESTORE ACT Center of Excellence has awarded a grant of almost $500,000 (ca. €430,000) for the project "Subsurface stratigraphic controls on subsidence and carbon sequestration in Mississippi Delta diversion receiving basins".
In this project, four collaborating research institutions will investigate and improve understanding of the heterogeneous geological framework that drives differential consolidation rates, and thus subsidence and organic matter sequestration in the delta. These geological conditions will be added to future modeling and management strategies that are needed to mitigate the dramatic land-loss seen in the Mississippi Delta over the past century. The research team will analyse marsh, bay, and paleochannel sub-environments in Barataria Basin, an interdistributary region of southeast Louisiana where two delta lobes overlap. Elizabeth Chamberlain of the Soil Geography and Landscape group, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) will contribute stratigraphic assessments and optically stimulated luminescence dating (analysed in the NCL laboratory of WUR) to test how land-surface subsidence rates in the Mississippi Delta are influenced by the age and lithology of underlying strata. Other project partners are Tulane University, Louisiana Geological Society and project leader Louisiana State University.
More information:
RESTORE Act Center of Excellence for Louisiana
Elizabeth Chamberlain
NCL lab