Life on a Tectonically Active Delta: Convergence of Earth Science and Geohazard Research in Bangladesh with Education and Capacity Building

Lead PI: Dr. Michael S. Steckler , Mr. Leonardo Seeber

Unit Affiliation: Marine and Polar Geophysics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)

June 2010 - August 2018
Inactive
Asia ; India ; Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta
Project Type: Research

DESCRIPTION: The project will examine sediments and stratigraphic architecture of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta as a record of fundamental fluvial and tectonic processes as well as the interactions between them. This will be done by drilling about 250 wells and using electrical resistivity profiles and marine multichannel seismic reflection along rivers and flooded areas to image subsurface features and correlate between wells.

OUTCOMES: So far two journal publications and two websites have been produced.

SPONSOR:

National Science Foundation (NSF)

FUNDED AMOUNT:

$4,770,167

RESEARCH TEAM:

Won-Young Kim

EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS:

Vanderbilt University, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Queens College-CUNY, Dhaka University, University of Bremen, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Physical Research Laboratory, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Valcanologia

WEBSITE:

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0968354&HistoricalAwards=false

KEYWORDS

wells earthquakes seismology geology and tectonics seismic reflection electrical resistivity sedimentation floods risk tectonics river avulsion

RELATED ARTICLES

Nov 21, 2025

Sailing Around the Bangladesh Coastal Zone

The future sustainability of the delta depends on the balance of sea level rise, the subsidence of the land, and the deposition of sediments that can help maintain the land.

Nov 19, 2025

Driving Around the Bangladesh Coastal Zone 

Mike Steckler travels around the coastal zone of the world’s largest delta in Bangladesh to repair GNSS (GPS) instruments.

Nov 13, 2025

Continuing on to Comilla, Dhaka and the Coast

After finishing fixing their global navigation satellite system equipment in Sylhet, Mike Steckler and his team traveled south to repair more stations in Comilla, then to Dhaka and the coast.

Nov 06, 2025

Repairing Global Navigation Satellite Systems in the Land of Tea

Mike Steckler is back in Sylhet, Bangladesh, to repair GNSS stations that are monitoring tectonics and earthquake hazards, and measuring the sinking of the land in the world's biggest delta.

Apr 09, 2025

Mangroves, Tigers and Shopping

The last part of our trip was a whirlwind of seeing multiple sites in the Sundarbans mangrove forest and its wildlife, more interviews with villagers, historic and cultural sites and shopping, followed by tearful goodbyes.

Mar 31, 2025

Poets and Polders

Continuing on our journey, we visited the shrine and former home of Bangladeshi cultural icons, continued our interviews, and boarded a boat to take us to the embanked islands known as polders.

Mar 25, 2025

A Special Trip to Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, a large and growing population lives in one of the most dynamic and sensitive environments on Earth, subject to multiple natural disasters and threatened by climate change.

Jun 17, 2024

Finding an Undocumented Earthquake That Moved a River

Researchers offer a behind-the-scenes look at their recent discovery of an earthquake that shifted the course of the Ganges.

Jun 17, 2024

An Earthquake Changed the Course of the Ganges. Could It Happen Again?

2,500 years ago, an earthquake changed the course of the mighty Ganges River, a new study shows. The region remains vulnerable to a similar event now.

Mar 20, 2024

Repairing Tectonic GNSS in Bangladesh’s Tea Region

The remainder of my fieldwork focuses on the GNSS (the general term for GPS) instruments in eastern Bangladesh to study the tectonics and earthquake hazard.