ABSTRACT
The world’s major deltas are relatively young geomorphic features, having formed since the middle Holocene when sea level reached its current height. The term ‘‘delta’’ was coined by the Greek historian Herodotus about 2500 B.C. because of the similarity in shape between the Nile delta and the Greek letter D. Although marine deltas are the largest and most studied, the first conceptual model for understanding deltaic processes and sedimentary deposits was established by the famous geomorphologist G. K. Gilbert in the late 1800s in a study of paleo Lake Bonneville, U.S.A. The Mississippi delta is the most studied deltaic system in the world, although the geometry of this fluvial dominated delta is quite distinct from most other large deltas. Nevertheless, the conceptual framework developed from numerous early studies of the Mississippi delta system has been employed as a form-process model for understanding deltas around the world.
