Mississippi River Sediment Plume. Satellite image of the Mississippi River Sediment Plume. The Mississippi River carries about 500 million tons of sediment into the Gulf of Mexico each year. This true-color image, acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Terra satellite on March 5, 2001, shows the brown water of the Mississippi mixing with the dark blue water of the Gulf two days after a rainstorm. The river brings enough sediment from its 3,250,000 square km (1,250,000 square mi) basin to extend the coast of Louisiana m (300 ft) each year. New Orleans (gray pixels) is located in the center of the image, just below Lake Pontchartrain. To the left of the Mississippi River delta is the Atchafalaya River, a "distributary" of the Mississippi that carries about 30% of the river's total flow.