Rivers Revision Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering river anatomy, erosion processes, and landform development based on the lecture notes.

River basin

An area of land where rain collects.

Tributary

A small river that flows into a main river.

Mouth

The end of a river where it flows into the sea or a lake.

Source

The place where a river begins, such as the source of the Amazon which is $6,500\,km$ from the sea.

Watershed

The boundary or edge of a river basin, usually found on high ground.

Channel

The path that a river flows in, consisting of banks and a bed.

Confluence

The point where a tributary meets the main river.

Upper Course

The part of a river long profile in the highland where erosion primarily wears away the land.

Lower Course

The part of a river long profile in the lowland near the mouth where deposition primarily occurs.

Erosion

The wearing away of the land by material carried by a river followed by the removal of loose material like boulders, rock, and soil.

Attrition

A type of erosion where material moved along the river bed collides with other material, causing it to break into smaller pieces.

Abrasion

A type of erosion where fine material carried by a river rubs against the banks, acting like sandpaper.

Solution (Corrosion)

A type of erosion occurring when certain rocks are dissolved by acids in the river.

Hydraulic Action

A type of erosion caused by the sheer force of the river water hitting its banks.

Deposition

The dropping and laying down of material carried by a river, occurring when river levels fall or the river slows down.

Waterfall

A landform created where a river flows over a layer of hard rock (cap rock) that overlies softer, less resistant rock.

Plunge pool

A deep basin at the base of a waterfall formed by the force of water hitting soft rock and deepened by corrasion.

Gorge

A steep-sided valley formed downstream as a waterfall retreats upstream over time.

Meander

A bend in a river channel where erosion and deposition take place simultaneously.

River cliff

A steep bank on the outside of a meander bend formed by erosion where the current is fastest.

Slip off slope

A small beach of sand and shingle deposited on the inside of a meander bend where the current is slowest.

Ox-bow lake

A U-shaped body of water left behind when a meander neck is cut through completely and the old meander is sealed off by deposition.

Floodplain

An area of low-lying land adjacent to a river, formed from older river channel and floodplain sediments.

Levee

Raised banks formed by layers of sediment deposited along the edges of a river channel during flood conditions.