Isle de Jean Charles

An investigation of the causes of land loss

Chris Mooney reported in a Feburary 10, 2016 article in the Washington Post that The U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development recently announced $96 million in funding to the State of Louisiana as a part of
the National Disaster Resilience Competition, much of which would go to a project called the Isle de Jean
Charles Resettlement. The money would be used to relocate the Bilioxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, which has
seen a 98% land loss since 1955 according to HUD
This slide show is intended as an investigation of the causes of land loss in and around Isle de Jean Charles. It
will demonstrate that peer-reviewed scientific investigation has shown that it is primarily the activity of geologic
faults at the surface that is causing the marsh to subside, and creating the measurable land loss. This is an
entirely natural process that has been going on for millions of years, and there is absolutely nothing we can do
about it.
We need to start to rethink our approach to the disaster resiliency in coastal Louisiana. We have been focused
on attempting to reverse the effects of the processes of nature that are going to move forward with or without our
interference. We should instead be focusing on changing the way that we do things. Instead of pushing back
against nature, we should we working within its limits. This will mean changing our expectations about our ability
to restore the coast to the way it was in the past.

This effort by HUD to get people out of harms way is by far the most effective and efficient use of the sizeable
expenditure of federal, state and local funding that has been thrown at the issue of coastal land loss over the
past several decades.

By: Chris McLindon chris_mclindon@att.net

Isle de Jean Charles

Isle de Jean Charles is within one of the several hot spots of land area change that show up as the red-orange-yellow
colors on the 2011 USGS Land Area Change Map. A detailed examination of this area using the LandSat 1992
Thematic Mapper Imagery collected by NASA and publically available on the Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources
Sonris website, and comparing it to the USGS Map is the basis of an examination of the causes of land loss at and
around Isle de Jean Charles. These comparisons are combined with maps of geologic faults that cross the surface of
the marsh that have been constructed by some of the leading scientists in the field of coastal geology to fully explain
the processes by which the wetlands surface is being subsided.

Wonder
Lake

Isle de Jean Charles

The color code of the USGS Map indicates the time interval in which a given area of marsh converted to open water.
Switching back and forth between this slide and the next one shows that these hot spots of land area change are now
bodies of open water that were marsh in 1932. What is striking is the juxtaposition of areas of concentrated change
and areas where there has been relatively little change. The fact that the areas of concentrated change lie landward of
areas that have not changed would seem to be problematic for the coastal erosion model that contends that dredged
canals allowed for accelerated erosion of the marsh. This model should be obvious as an outward-in progression of
erosion from the shoreline. Instead the hot spots of change are on the inside with sharp interfaces with adjacent
undisturbed marsh.

Isle de Jean Charles

The bodies of open water that define the hot spots of land area change lie between the populated ridges of bayous,
which are all former distributary channels of the Mississippi River. The towns of Dulac, Theriot and Montegut are all
protected by artificial levees that appear as heavy white lines on the Land Area Change Map. The natural levees of the
bayous are generally elevated above the surrounding marsh, and the artificial levees prevent the encroachment of
water from the marsh, even when elevations behind the levee may be below the water level. The direct removal of
marsh by oil and gas drilling activity is obvious as the dredged slips and canals that cut into the marsh.

Surface traces of major faults

Isle de Jean Charles

The dashed yellow lines represent the surface traces of the major faults of the Terrebonne Trough that underlies this
area. There is an immediately obvious relationship between the boundaries of concentrated land area change and the
traces of these faults. The strong correlation between the northern boundary of the hot spots of change and the fault
traces delineates the juxtaposition of open water against undisturbed marsh. In most cases the undisturbed marsh is
on the northern or upthrow side of the fault and the open water is on the downthrown or down-dropped block of the
faults. The nature of listric faulting is to rotate the faulted surface as the descending block follows the arcuate surface
of the fault. It is the rotation of the marsh surface that allows for the flow of water into the depressed area created by
the movement of the faults.

Surface traces of major faults

Isle de Jean Charles

The open bodies of water today that were marsh in 1932 can now be seen as a set of submerged depressions that are
connected by the surface traces of the major faults. The marsh on the upthrown side of these faults has experienced
little subsidence, and is therefore very much the way it was in 1932. The belt of marsh along the southern quarter of
this image has also been relatively undisturbed by subsidence or erosion. It is the belt of marsh in the middle of the
area that parallels the faults that has been submerged and is now open water. There is even some evidence of
subsidence within the artificial levees on the downthrown side of the faults. The next series of slides will show that
these surface faults are the same faults that have been active structural components of the Terrebonne Trough for
millions of years.

Vertical fault traces

Isle de Jean Charles

KUECHER, et.al., 2001

Kuecher, G.J., et.al., 2001, Evidence for Active Growth

Faulting in the Terrebonne Delta Plain, South Louisiana:
Implications for Wetland Loss and the Vertical
Migration of Petroleum., Environmental Geosciences,
v. 8, p. 7794

The surface fault traces shown on the previous few slides as dashed lines were studied in a 2001 paper co-authored by
Dr. Harry Roberts of the LSU Coastal Studies Institute. Their research included access to the seismic profiles, which
were published in the paper and shown here. The extends of the profiles is shown as the heavy dashed lines on the
map to the left and labeled A-A and B-B. The seismic profiles are reflection images of the subsurface. The depth of
the reflection image is measured in two-way travel time (TWT) in seconds of the sound waves travelling from source to
receiver. Based on the known properties of the sedimentary layers being imaged, 4.0 seconds is equivalent to about
20,000 in depth. The heavy black lines on the seismic profiles are the vertical traces of the faults, which demark an
arcuate fault surface that clearly offsets the reflections associated with the sedimentary layers. These faults offset, and
are responsible for subsidence and expansion of the deep Miocene section, and they also clearly cut to the surface
where they are causing subsidence of the marsh surface today. Isle de Jean Charles is immediately on the
downthrown side of the large Meadow Fault as labeled in this study.

The magenta lines labeled A-A and B-B show the location of the seismic profiles.
The green arrows show where the faults extend to the surface of the marsh. These
are the same faults that have been active in the Terrebonne Trough for millions of
years. They have controlled the location of Mississippi River deltas throughout much
of that time, and they have been critical in determining the location of the oil and gas
fields below the surface. The seismic data was acquired to explore for oil and gas,
but it can also be used for this very important component of wetlands research.

GAGLIANO, et.al., 2008

The surface expression of two of the major faults are also seen in photographs published by Gagliano, 2008. The
Montegut Fault (which Kuecher refers to as the Spur Fault) is shown in this photograph demarking a sharp contact
between marsh and open water. It is the rotational subsidence of the marsh surface by the fault that creates a slope
which accelerates the influx of brackish water killing the cypress trees. Gagliano also postulated that the location of a
levee failure could be related to the fault

This set of photographs (also published by Gagliano in 2003) shows the progression of subsidence on the downthrown
side of what Kuecher calls the Lake Hatch Fault. The area of unbroken marsh in 1953 is divided into open water and
undisturbed marsh by the sharp trace of the fault. The area on the downthrown side of the fault has subsided below
the surface and converted to open water. It now shows up as an area of land loss on the USGS Map

This set of lines show the potential locations for the cross section of the marsh surface shown on the next slide. It
illustrates how the marsh surface is subsided by rotation by the movement of the faults

Fault Scarp

GAGLIANO, et.al., 2003

This cross section illustrates the process by which the activity of these major faults rotates the surface of the marsh,
changing its slope, and creating a fault scarp that defines the sharp northern boundary. The sloping marsh surface
changes the hydrologic regime and allows for water to encroach and submerge the area. The cross section is derived
from a specific example documented by Gagliano, et.al.
Gagliano, S.M., et.al., 2003, Neotectonic framework of southeast Louisiana and applications to coastal
Restoration, Trans. G.C.A.G.S., v. 53, p. 262272

Isle de Jean Charles

The following three-slide sequence of inset images shows a history of the submergence of the area around Wonder Lake
from 1971 to 2010. The surface trace of the active fault is shown as a yellow dashed line on the land change map and a
green dashed line on the images. Although photo resolution varies it is apparent that the marsh on the upthrown side of the
fault remains undisturbed throughout, and the downthrown side progressively subsides. It is useful to flip back and forth
through the sequence to watch the submergence of the downthrown side of the fault. This is a graphic illustration of the
rotation of the marsh surface by the fault. The solid yellow line on the images in the proposed location of the Morganza-toGulf levee system. It is obviously very ill-advised to build a protection levee across a subsiding fault block

Area 1

Isle le Jean Charles

Between 1971 and 1998 the marsh surface on the downthrown side of the Lake Hatch Fault, as named by Kuecher, et al.,
has been largely subsided below the surface. The marsh surface on the upthrown side is not subsided an remains mostly
undisturbed. This area shows no land loss since 1932 on the USGS Map

Area 1

Isle le Jean Charles

The contrast of the 2010 satellite image is not very good, but the marsh surface on the upthrown side is still intact and
unsubsided. The entire area around Wonder Lake has been converted to open water, and shows up on the USGS Map as
the bright orange and reds. This time sequence of photograph effectively shows the process of subsidence by the rotation
of the Lake Hatch Fault. Isle le Jean Charles is situated on the downthrown side of the Meadow Fault and it has
experienced an equivalent degree of subsidence.

MORTON, et.al., 2010

An area of concentrated land area change just west of Isle le Jean Charles was examined by Morton, et.al. 2010. This area
experienced very little surface dredging activity, but was converted from marsh to open water between 1932 and 2010.
Morton took several shallow cores across the area and determined that the most recent layer of marsh deposits had not
eroded, but had subsided below the surface. His cross section shows that the depth of the water is a direct measure of the
subsidence that occurred during this time. The map on the lower right shows that it reached a maximum value of 1.2 meters
Morton, R.A., et.al., 2010, Quantifying large-scale historical formation of accommodation in the Mississippi Delta, Earth
Surface Processes and Landforms, v. 35, no. 14, p. 1625-1641

Surface traces of major faults

A detailed examination of all of the hot spots of land area change across coastal Louisiana reveals that they are all
largely controlled by the activity of surface faults. These natural features have been moving episodically throughout the
geologic history of this area and they are likely to continue to subside the marsh surface and progressively convert it to
open water. There is nothing we can do to affect this natural process. Our efforts will be most effective in beginning to
make preparations for the eventual submergence of most of the coastal marshes, and to work toward a true restoration
of the coast, which can only mean restoring the entire natural system to the way it would have been if we had never
interfered with it in the first place.