Introduction
The Louisiana coastal plain is one of America’s most unique and important areas in terms of regional coastal ecosystems, natural resources, human infrastructure and cultural heritage. Louisiana is located at the terminus of the Mississippi River, North America’s largest drainage basin stretching from the Appalachian Mountains westward to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, covering a region of more than 3.3 million sq km (Fig. 1.6.1 ). The Mississippi River discharges 6.2 × 1011 kg to the Gulf of Mexico annually (Coleman 1988) building a large delta plain (<30,000 sq km) that comprises more than one-third of southern Louisiana. Located to the west of the Mississippi Delta Plain, the Louisiana Chenier plain consists of a series of transgressive and regressive sandy ridges that are separated and underlain by prograded mud-rich deposits. Coastal Louisiana has been a long-term depository of sediment; much of the delta plain sits above a 10–15 km thick pile of Mesozoic and...
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Georgiou, I., Kulp, M., Miner, M., FitzGerald, D. (2010). Louisiana. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_7
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