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Ups and downs of the Mississippi Delta

^{1 1}Department of Geology and Geophysics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
^{2 2}Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
^{3 3}Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

Correspondence: *E-mail: mike{at}geol.lsu.edu.

During the last glacial period, when sea level was low, meltwater discharge drove incision of the lower Mississippi valley, with valley filling and delta construction during Holocene sea-level rise. Isostatic modeling shows that sediment volumes removed and replaced were sufficient to induce uplift of >9 m along valley margins followed by subsidence of the same magnitude, with effects dissipating only over distances of >100–150 km along the Gulf of Mexico coast. Recognition of cyclical uplift and subsidence refutes recent interpretations of delta stability, and suggests that late Holocene relative sea-level curves from the delta region are instead a record of subsidence of the pre-Holocene depocenter. More broadly, incised valley cutting and filling is a common fluvial response to glacioeustasy, and cyclical uplift and subsidence should be common to large alluvial-deltaic systems elsewhere.

Key Words: Mississippi delta • incised valley • isostatic uplift and subsidence • Holocene sea-level change

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