why rivers curve

spirals, patterns, fractals...

Very cool Burra -
I gotta add my favorite manipulator the beaver~ Been watching a couple of them determined to damn up our little river over & over again. Hope they get their homes situated before winter really sets in.

I second the beavers as master river/stream rebenders. I've included a photo of one of our artificial beaver dam installs and 2 of part of an ancient beaver dam complex that redirected the stream in a hollow which resulted in three springs starting to flow and flattened the entire hollow, making it ideal for vegetation.

Thank you, Burra! I had been puzzling over 'oxbow' and its definitions.... but a picture is worth a thousand words :) And, thanks, also for a fascinating new (to me) online teaching site.

We have a stream, in a valley, below our land in Wyoming. It has lots of curves and old oxbows.
It was interesting to watch the formation of a new oxbow this summer just downstream from our bridge.
The spring runoff started flooding out of the stream banks. Little by little, over the summer, the force of the flow cut a new channel.
By the time snow flew this fall the stream had created an Oxbow!