| Caption: |
(a) Idealized diagram of a meandering stream showing important features. Historical migration of meander bends is commonly indicated by low, curving, vegetation-covered ridges called meander scrolls. The scrolls on the point bar in the left center of the diagram indicate that it migrated from right to left. (b) Animas River north of Durango, Colorado, at high flow with brown muddy water filling the channel. The dark-blue abandoned channels that form oxbow lakes in the lower right indicate that the river has meandered back and forth across the valley to build its floodplain. In contrast to the river, the lakes have very little suspended sediment in the water. (c) The sandy point bar on the left side of (b) exposed at low flow. A farmer has placed junked cars on the cutbank of a meander bend in the right center to slow the erosion of his pasture. (Robert H. Blodgett) |
| Keywords: |
streams, rivers, water, velocity, velocities, streamflow, erosion, channels, meanders, meandering, cut banks, point bars, deposition, cutoffs, oxbow lakes, floods, floodplains |
