 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Delta Digs Show Sea Is Rising
Chicago IL (SPX) Jul 28, 2004 Living in New Orleans means having to live with water. It's everywhere. The city's elevation ranges from about 12 feet (3.65 meters) above sea level to as much as six-and-a-half feet (2 meters) below sea level. Some believe the city faces an ongoing battle against submersion by the rising Gulf of Mexico. New research reported by a team led by a University of Illinois at Chicago earth scientist suggests the sea level in the lower Mississippi delta near New Orleans has been rising at a steady pace for at least the past 8,000 years, and is continuing to do so. The findings are published in the July-August issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin.
The proof is in the peat Besides showing that rising sea levels are a continuing threat to coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico, T�rnqvist said the data challenges a longstanding hypothesis that sea levels in the Gulf 5,000 years ago were as much as two meters higher than they are today. "We've found peat - organic deposits formed by plants that grew at sea level - about 5,000 years old that are four meters below present sea level. How is that possible?" he asked. "Based on our data, we strongly suggest that the high sea level could not have happened." The earlier notion stems from the presence of Gulf Coast beach ridges - remnants of former shorelines - that now stand above sea level. Research has shown some of these ridges to be about 5,000 years old. The implication is that sea level has fluctuated, not risen steadily, as T�rnqvist postulates. T�rnqvist hopes to resolve the conflict by searching for and analyzing peat deposits around the beach ridges. He's confident the results will confirm that the ridges, however they were formed, do not prove that sea levels were higher 5,000 years ago. "This is important because it changes our model of how sea level has gone from past to present for large areas of the Gulf Coast," said T�rnqvist. "In order to make better predictions, we need to understand whether sea level in the past was rising or falling." Despite evidence that low-lying areas along the Gulf of Mexico face steady erosion from a rapidly rising sea, T�rnqvist thinks public officials have sufficient time to develop adaptive management strategies. "Even if you take very grim scenarios projecting another one meter (3 feet) rise over the next 100 years, we can prepare for it in that time or even less. But in the meantime, there is much to be done to gain a greater understanding of the basic process," he said. The study was co-authored by UIC doctoral student Juan Gonz�lez, Lee Newsom of Pennsylvania State University, Klaas van der Borg and Arie de Jong of Utrecht University in The Netherlands, and Charles Kurnik of the University NAVSTAR Consortium, headquartered in Boulder, Colo. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links University of Illinois, Chicago SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Water News - Science, Technology and Politics
GROWing The Next Generation Of Water Recycling Plants
London UK (SPX) Dec 09, 2005A vegetated rooftop recycling system has been developed that allows water to be used twice before it is flushed into the communal waste water system. |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
