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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

GCAGS Transactions

Abstract


Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions
Vol. 46 (1996), Pages 185-191

Fluvial Sediment Characteristics of the Mobile River Delta

Wayne C. Isphording (l), F. Dewayne Imsand (2), R. Bradford Jackson (3)

ABSTRACT

The Mobile River Delta is the largest inland delta complex in the United states and serves as the terminus for the Nation's fourth largest river system. In spite of the size of this delta system, the great majority of sediments that are carried into the complex pass completely through the extensive distributary system. Less than 30 percent of all sediment eroded from within the watershed reach the Gulf of Mexico, however, and it is Mobile Bay, rather than the delta system, that is the ultimate depositional site for most river-borne detritus. The important consequence of this is that it is the bay's sediments that are the chief accumulation sites for industrial and municipal contaminants that are discharged into the river system. Hence the delta, which constitutes Alabama's largest natural wetland area, has been largely spared from contamination by anthropogenic sources by virtue of its low sediment trap efficiency.


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