Science · 6 pages · 12 min
How an oxbow lake gets left behind
A river cuts across a meander neck and leaves the old bend sealed off as a lake.
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From the opening
An oxbow lake is a bend of river that has been cut off and left as still water beside the new, straighter channel. It starts as part of the living river and becomes a lake because the current moved to a shorter path. The opening covers how a meander neck is cut, why the old bend seals shut, and what a meander scar is.
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Inside
- How a meander neck is cut
- Why the old bend seals shut
- What a meander scar is
- When a cutoff is not a lake
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Meander cutoff on an alluvial floodplain
- Oxbow lakes as abandoned river channels