June 18, 2010 The Gulf of Mexico: what role will the Mississippi
River play in oil washing ashore and into delta wetlands? One of
the spill's greatest environmental threats is to Louisiana's
wetlands, scientists believe. But there may be good news ahead.
Scientists affiliated with the National Center for Earth-surface
Dynamics (NCED), a National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and
Technology Center headquartered at the University of Minnesota,
are using long-term field plots in Louisiana's Wax Lake Delta to
measure the baseline conditions of, and track the effects of the
oil spill on, coastal Louisiana wetlands. Robert Twilley and
Guerry Holm of Louisiana State University (LSU) are
investigating the degree to which two delta wetland
characteristics may help mitigate oil contamination. Fresh water
head, as it's called, the slope of the water's surface from a
river delta to the sea, and residence time of river-mouth
wetlands, the time it takes water to move through a wetland at a
river's mouth, are important t