Answer
to River Rat Map Quiz #4
| This map is a great example
of the tendency of large floodplain rivers like the Mississippi to
change their channels over time. The river naturally meanders, creating
greater and greater "loops." Eventually, when water levels are high,
the powerful currents make a shortcut through the narrow part of the
loop and shorten the river channel. The part of the channel that formed
the meander, now cut off from the river, becomes an oxbow lake. When
the state boundary on the map was drawn, it followed the meandering
course of the river channel. But since then the river has changed
its channel, and in several places the state boundary now traces meanders
that have become oxbow lakes. |
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