TheBestLinks.com
TheBestLinks.com
Alluvial plain, Meander, Levee, Alluvial deposit, Floodplain, Alluvium ... Print friendly version | Tell a friend
 
Navigation
Search
Toolbox

Alluvial plain

From TheBestLinks.com

An alluvial plain is a relatively flat and gently sloping earthform found at the base of a range of hills. As the hills erode due to weather and water flow the soil from the hills is transported to the lower plain. Various creeks will carry the water further to a river, lake, bay, or ocean. As the solid material is deposited during flood conditions in the floodplain of the creek, the elevation of the floodplain will be raised. As this reduces the channel floodwater capacity, the creek will over time seek new, lower paths, forming meanders (a curving sinuous path). The leftover higher locations, typically natural levees at the margins of the flood channel, will themselves be weathered down from local erosion from rainfall and possibly wind transport if the climate is arid and does not support soil-holding grasses. These processes over geologic time will form the plain - a region with little relief (local changes in elevation), yet with a constant but small slope.

See also

Related links


Top visited 0 of 0 links

[no links posted yet]

>> place link >>

Discussion

Last posted 0 of 0 messages

[no messages posted yet]

>> post message >>

Watch

You can add this article to your own "watchlist" and receive e-mail notification about all changes in this page.
 
   
Innovate it
This page was last modified 05:14, 7 Sep 2004.
  Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.
Powered by MediaWiki