This is why setting borders based on rivers is fundamentally flawed.
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I mean, you say that now, but if someone stood on the other side of the river and shot arrows at you, would you really disagree with them?
It's all arbitrary anyway...
The alternative is pretty fucking stupid too. Imagine losing access to your freshwater because the river shifted across an imaginary line. At least when the border is the river, you always have access to the river.
Sooner or later they're going to become meander scars or oxbow lakes, when the river reconnects with itself.
My first thought when seeing this was future home of an ox bow lake
And not far future! Both bends are within a couple of trees in missing each other.
For those not on the water much, see the beach on the left of the top bow? The opposite side is where the water is deeper and faster. It'll chew through that bank and meet the other side soon enough.
Holy fuck that oxbow lake schematic on wikipedia looks earily like a vessicle coming of a piece of membrane
The only thing I know about vesicles is that microvesicles are gross... thanks to paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler.
See those "pinch points"? The river will eventually form meander cutoffs, and become a sinuous system rather than a meandering river. This will lead to localized increases in channel slope (due to a reduction in channel length), and therefore increased local velocities, shear stress, and sediment transport.
Rivers are always seeking equilibrium, so the channel will actually start to move (bank erosion / lateral shifting) to reduce that localized slope and bring things back in order.
Rivers are so fucking cool.
What's the hells an oxbow?! Are our bovine friends fashioning weaponry? Someone should tell me, do I need to buy a shield?
Oxbow is when a flowing body of water curves out like this over time. Eventually it will redirect to the older, more direct course, leaving an arc of unflowing water called an oxbow lake. This one might have two.
Sorry, I was just quoting Mr.Weebl's old video about the subject, probably should have linked it in my original comment XD Youtube link
I don't know much about rivers but based on the floods we had here in Brazil early this year, I don't think that house will be there by the end of the century.
I'm surprised no one shared that
There was no one by the name Tom Bigbee, it seems.
The name “Tombigbee” comes from Choctaw “itumbi ikbi“, which means “box maker” or “coffin maker”. There are many stories and legends about how this name came to be. One story is the river was named after a box maker who lived on some of the Tombigbee’s headwaters. Another story is based on the need for box making in the area to ship pelts during the French-dominated fur trade in the 1700’s.
Umm... Choctaw
are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Mississippi and Alabama.
Makes sense for it to be a Choctaw name, then. Isn't the tombigby in, like, Tennessee or something?
I wouldn't know. My geographical knowledge of North America isn't good. :) Google maps points to Alabama and Mississippi, when I ask it about the river's name.
Reminds me of a Wild Thornberrys episode I saw when I was a kid where they fell off a boat and needed to cross a mountain to catch it on the other side.
Is it an oxbow or a puppyhammer?
