The Atchafalaya Basin has a long relationship with the Mississippi River throughout the Holocene epoch, and the geology of the modern basin is a direct manifestation of that relationship. The Atchafalaya Basin has been part of three historic depositional lobes (Sale-Cypremort, Teche, and Lafourche lobes) of the Mississippi River Delta Plain that formed south Louisiana, and active delta lobe development is currently occurring at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River and Wax Lake Outlet. The geology of the current basin has been driven by flows of Atchafalaya River water and sediment that flowed into open water areas through relict Mississippi River distributary channels.