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Potential Impacts and Major Products

Knowledge gained from this process-oriented project on the fate of sediment-hosted pollutants in the lower Mississippi River system will enhance our understanding of the integrated suite of processes (geologic framework, hydrology, biology) responsible for the flux of contaminants to the Gulf of Mexico. Because this river system traverses one of the most industrialized corridors in the world, the potential contaminant influx (past and present) to the Gulf of Mexico through either the Atchafalaya or Mississippi River systems is significant. Recent sediment geochronologies should be able to provide a reconstruction of historic contaminant inventories for the lower Mississippi River system over the last ~ 100 years. Such a study will provide an integrated and comprehensive model that can then also be applied to other river/ocean mixing systems.

Under the leadership of Robert Meade and others, the U.S. Geological Survey recently concluded an in-depth contaminant study in the mainstem Mississippi River (Meade, 1996). This new project will extend those efforts to the deltas of the Mississippi/Atchafalaya Rivers, as well as the Gulf of Mexico inner-shelf region. This project will also tie directly into the newly launched USGS Gulf of Mexico Initiative, and will be able to provide key linkages to other research agencies and academia that have an active research interest in the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico.