|
|
"A collaborative political resource." |
New Orleans Sits Atop Giant Landslide
|
| Parent(s) |
Container
-
|
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Apr 04, 2006 05:08pm |
| Category | Study |
| News Date | Mar 31, 2006 05:00pm |
| Description |  New Orleans is at the top end of what looks like a gigantic, slow-moving landslide, according to geologists who have been carefully studying the ground movements in the area.
Amid news that rebuilding the city's levees will cost substantially more than projected, the discovery of a much wider, older cause for the area's rapid subsidence flies in the face of years of policies that have pinned the blame on human activities for most of the area's gradual sinking below sea level.
The pumping of groundwater, levee building, and oil and gas extraction have carried the blame so far, but what's being called "tectonic" subsidence appears to account for 73 percent of all sinking from 1969 to 1971 and 50 percent from 1971 to 1977.
"Not only is southern Louisiana sinking, it's sliding," said geologist Roy Dokka of Louisiana State University.
|
| Article | Read Article |
|
|
