Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Denudation is the geological process in which moving water, ice, wind, and waves erode the Earth's surface, leading to a reduction in elevation and in relief of landforms and landscapes.
[54] [55] Rivers are key links in the connectivity of different landscape elements. As rivers flow across the landscape, they generally increase in size, merging with other rivers. The network of rivers thus formed is a drainage system. These systems take on four general patterns: dendritic, radial, rectangular, and trellis.
The terms river morphology and its synonym stream morphology are used to describe the shapes of river channels and how they change in shape and direction over time. The morphology of a river channel is a function of a number of processes and environmental conditions, including the composition and erodibility of the bed and banks (e.g., sand, clay, bedrock); erosion comes from the power and ...
Dendritic drainage: the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Tibet, seen from space: snow cover has melted in the valley system. In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of land, whether a particular region is ...
Rivers rarely run in a straight line, instead, they bend or meander; the locations of a river's banks can change frequently. Rivers get their alluvium from erosion, which carves rock into canyons and valleys. Rivers have sustained human and animal life for millennia, including the first human civilizations.
River incision is the narrow erosion caused by a river or stream that is far from its base level. River incision is common after tectonic uplift of the landscape. Incision by multiple rivers result in a dissected landscape, for example a dissected plateau. River incision is the natural process by which a river cuts downward into its bed ...
As mentioned, when a river rejuvenates, it gains more energy and erodes vertically to meet its new base level. A river terrace is the remains of an old floodplain at a higher elevation than the present one. It typically results from river rejuvenation with further rejuvenation able to form new terraces, resulting in a step like profile around a ...
Tectonic uplift results in denudation (processes that wear away the earth's surface) by raising buried rocks closer to the surface. This process can redistribute large loads from an elevated region to a topographically lower area as well – thus promoting an isostatic response in the region of denudation (which can cause local bedrock uplift).