Stop 4 - Meanders and Floodplain

Follow the Water Stop 4 of 13 - Owens River from Above

Stop 4 - Meanders and Floodplain: For this stop, we only have one place to visit. With no other points of interest, this stop better be good. This elevated (oblique aerial) look at the Owens River shows a fantastic example of a dynamic fluvial system. The river is flowing from right to left in a meandering channel (denoted by the brown vegetation).

The skinny black arrow points to an ancient meander (highlighted with green vegetation) that was cut off. That cutoff is only one of many, many older meander scars visible in this image. If you look in the surrounding terrain, you will notice an oxbow lake that has not yet completely filled in with sediment. You will also see light colored curved lines on the landscape all representing former channel paths of the Owens River.

Please visit the Acme Mapper website: http://mapper.acme.com/

Then, in the white board box, plug in these latitude and longitude coordinates: N 36.63119 W 118.06672. Lastly, zoom into the third highest magnification. You will get a view that will look something like this view:

The darker ground is from groundwater being close to the surface, allowing a denser growth of vegetation. This darker color also identifies the floodplain of the Owens River. It boggles the mind to visualize the river flowing along each one of these lines at some point in the past. The river is incredibly dynamic, shifting and adjusting its channel pattern continuously overtime. Just within the darker floodplain, how many channel changes (avulsions) can you identify?

This is why building homes near a river or stream is always risky, because the system is always changing.