text:  The sediment making up this land was laid down by the Mississippi during the time of the Phoenicians, but now it's one of the fastest disappearing places on Earth. Dredging for oil and gas has accelerated the loss, as Donald showed me, pointing to the thin slivers of marshland with straight mechanical canal cuts. It's eroding, and if the mall company wouldn't have dug this train house out, this cutout, it'd still be well protected because Dubai is still a couple of hundred feet from here.