Turbid waters spill out into the Gulf of Mexico where their suspended sediment is deposited to form the Mississippi River Delta. Like the webbing on a duck’s foot, marshes and mudflats prevail between the shipping channels that have been cut into the delta.

This scene was acquired by the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite on May 24, 2001. This false-color composite was created by combining shortwave infrared, infrared, and near-infrared wavelengths (ASTER bands 4, 3, and 2).

Image provided by the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch as part of the Earth as Art II image series