Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A river delta is so named because the shape of the Nile Delta approximates the triangular uppercase Greek letter delta.The triangular shape of the Nile Delta was known to audiences of classical Athenian drama; the tragedy Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus refers to it as the "triangular Nilotic land", though not as a "delta". [8]
The Mississippi River Delta is a river-dominated delta system, influenced by the largest river system in North America. The shape of the current birdfoot delta reflects the dominance the river exerts over the other hydrologic and geologic processes at play in the northern Gulf of Mexico. [ 6 ]
The cuspate deltaic lobe is defined by its abrupt rate of discharge from river to body of water, and the creation of multiple cusp systems built up into separate but active distributaries. [9] One such example of a cuspate delta is the Tiber River delta of Italy. The river was formed first as a deltaic lobe cusp prograded from the river mouth.
A serious example is the Mississippi River Delta where coastal wetlands are disappearing at a rate of approximately 1% of land per year. [24] [25] On the Mississippi Delta, in order to eliminate land loss and mitigate coastal erosion, artificial diversions, reconnecting river to the deltaic wetland, have been constructed.
The shifting river delta at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf Coast lies some 300 miles south of this area in Louisiana, and is referred to as the Mississippi River Delta. Rather, the Mississippi Delta is part of an alluvial plain , created by regular flooding of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers over thousands of years.
An example of a deltaic lobe is the bird's-foot delta of the Mississippi River, pictured at right with its sediment plumes. As the deltaic lobe advances, the slope of the river channel becomes lower, as the river channel is longer but has the same change in elevation. As the slope of the river channel decreases, it becomes unstable for two reasons.
River deltas typically form on flat, coastal floodplains: the narrow end located at the point where a river fans out and deposits sediment in a region extending outward into the body of water which the river empties. In the case of an inverted delta, the delta is located at the waterway's exit from a large, flat valley, yet still inside the valley.
The geology of the Pearl River Delta is rock sequences plus superficial sediments, emplaced in an alluvial delta, occupying the Pearl River Estuary. The unconsolidated sediments which dominate the delta are largely derived from continental materials exposed across the Pearl River basin, and range in size from fine particles such as mud to larger fragments like gravel.