[Cubit’s Gap, Louisiana]

FASLANYC reports on the Mississippi as a “land-making machine”, vividly illustrated by the case of Cubit’s Gap:

“…let’s consider the case of Cubit’s Gap, a major subdelta of the [Mississippi].  The gap formed in 1862 after an oyster fisherman (Cubit) and his daughters excavated a small ditch in the natural levee between the Mississippi River and the oyster-rich Bay Ronde in order to portage their fishing boat more easily.  The following spring floodwater poured through, gouging a crevasse and depositing sediment.  Six years later the crevasse was 2,427 feet wide.  By 1940 a landmass larger than New Orleans had been created and the Bay Ronde had completely disappeared.  Today, the Cubits Gap subdelta is 40,000 acres of national wildlife refuge and is quickly subsiding back into the Gulf of Mexico.”