1251 Mississippi Delta From Space
28x40 inches, (70x100cm), not available laminated. Mississippi river, principal river of the United States, c.2,350 mi (3,780 km) long, exceeded in length only by the Missouri River, the chief of its numerous tributaries. The combined Missouri-Mississippi system, from the Missouri's headwaters in the Rocky Mts. to the mouth of the Mississippi River, ranks as the world's third longest river system after the Nile and the Amazon. With its tributaries, the Mississippi drains of the central United States, including all or part of 31 states and part of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada. The Mississippi is abundant in freshwater fish; shrimp are taken from the briny delta waters. The Mississippi River rises in small streams After receiving the Arkansas and Red rivers, the Mississippi enters a birdsfoot-type delta, which was built outward by sediment carried by the main stream that feed Lake Itasca in N Minnesota and flows generally south to enter the Gulf of Mexico through a huge delta in SE Louisiana - distributaries, the most important being the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Lafourche. A major economic waterway, the river is navigable from the sediment-free channel maintained through South Pass in the delta to the Falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis, with canals circumventing the rapids near Rock Island, Ill., and Keokuk, Iowa. The Mississippi connects with the Intracoastal Waterway in the south and with the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway system in the north by way of the Illinois Waterway. Pollution and the cutting of new waterways for petroleum exploration and drilling have taken their toll on the delta. Louisiana has enacted environmental protection laws that are expected to slow, but not halt, the loss of the delta marshes.
