Hurricane Katrina exacerbated an already severe problem: loss of New Orleans' protective coastal buffer.

Updated May 18, 2008.

The Subsurface Architecture (SA) Integrated Project (IP) goal is to develop methods to extract quantitative information on structure and dynamics of depositional systems from stratigraphic records and apply this information to landscape prediction and restoration.

Research Overview |  Research Plans | Education and Training 
Wax Lake Delta Field Site

The SA IP applies the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamic’s (NCED) integrated, predictive approach to extracting information from subsurface stratigraphy to infer rates, spatial patterns, and mechanisms of natural (prehuman) delta building processes. The database for this is primarily seismic imaging, well logs, and cores. This data is extremely costly to obtain and is mostly privately held in the oil industry, so we seek to maintain industrial connections that will give us access to data. In parallel, we perform experiments and field studies in the modern delta to develop predictive models of the processes by which deltas build land and maintain themselves and their associated ecosystems against subsidence and sea-level rise. These processes are strongly influenced by biota such that deltaic land-building must be seen as a bio-physical process and collaboration among ecologists, Earth scientists, and engineers is essential. Our approach involves understanding internally generated (autogenic) deltaic dynamics as well as delta response to external controls like subsidence, climate, and sea level.

To provide additional focus and connect the SA IP with stream restoration, we have developed a depositional field site, the Wax Lake Delta (WLD), an active sublobe within the Mississippi Delta system. This work has been done in collaboration with the NCED Stream Restoration (SR) IP group and outside Principal Investigators (PI). The goal of research in the WLD will be to create predictive tools for delta restoration. However, to make the final step to restoring the Mississippi Delta requires collaboration between natural and social scientists to understand and optimize the interaction of scientific input and human decision making.

Contact Information:
Jim Buttles
Subsurface Architecture Project Manager
Bureau of Economic Geology
The University of Texas at Austin
University Station, Box X
Austin, TX 78713-8924
(512) 475-9539