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This picture of the Nowitna River in Alaska shows two oxbow lakes – a short one at the bottom of the picture and a longer, more curved one at the middle-right. The picture also shows that a third oxbow lake is probably in the making: the isthmus or bank in the centre of the most prominent meander is very narrow – much narrower than the width of the river; eventually, the two sections of ...
A meander cutoff, also known as either a cutoff meander or abandoned meander, is a meander that has been abandoned by its stream after the formation of a neck cutoff. A lake that occupies a cutoff meander is known as an oxbow lake. Cutoff meanders that have cut downward into the underlying bedrock are known in general as incised cutoff meanders ...
Meander scars, oxbow lakes and abandoned meanders in the broad flood plain of the Rio Negro, Argentina. 2010 astronaut photo from ISS. A meander scar, occasionally meander scarp, [1] is a geological feature formed by the remnants of a meandering water channel. They are characterized by "a crescentic cut in a bluff or valley wall, produced by ...
Point bar at a river meander: the Cirque de la Madeleine in the Gorges de l'Ardèche, France. Any fluid, including water in a stream, can only flow around a bend in vortex flow. [1] In vortex flow the speed of the fluid is fastest where the radius of the flow is smallest, and slowest where the radius is greatest.
When the original channel is cut off from the new channel by the deposition of sediments, oxbow lakes are formed. [3] Channel migration is important to sustaining diverse aquatic and riparian habitats [4] The migration causes sediments and woody debris to enter the river, and creates areas of new floodplain on the inside of the meander. [4]
Animation of the formation of an oxbow lake. A meander cutoff is a natural form of a cutting or cut in a river occurs when a pronounced meander (hook) in a river is breached by a flow that connects the two closest parts of the hook to form a new channel, a full loop.
Given enough time, the combination of erosion along cut banks and deposition along point bars can lead to the formation of an oxbow lake. Not only are cut banks steep and unstable, they are also the area of a stream where the water is flowing the fastest and often deeper. In geology, this is known as an area of "high-energy".
Reelfoot Lake State Park in Tennessee. The Northern Holocene Meander Belts ecoregion is a flat to nearly flat floodplain containing the meander belts of the present and past courses of the Mississippi River. Point bars, natural levees, swales, and abandoned channels marked by meander scars and oxbow lakes are common and characteristic.