Geol 307: Sedimentation and

Stratigraphy
Semester 061
2006
Lecture 15
Rivers: the fluvial environment
 River form and patterns
¾ The term Fluvial is used for anything associated with rivers.
¾ Water flow in a river system is normally confined to the channels,
depressions or scours in the land surface which contain the flow.
¾ The over bank area or floodplain is the area of land between or
beyond the channels which (apart from rain) receives water only
when the river is in flood. Floods occur when water is supplied into
the river at a higher rate that can be carried within the channel.
¾ They can be relatively short (~1 km) to thousands of kilometers long.
Commonly, they are 1-2 m deep, though the largest rivers can be
more than 15 m deep.
¾ Rivers are the primary means of transporting sediment across the
continents.
¾ Rivers are also the primary agents of erosion on the continents.
 Fluvial Systems
¾ Channel patterns (fluvial styles) are commonly classified Based on
channel sinuosity as:
¾ Braided rivers
¾ Meandering rivers
¾ Straight rivers
¾ Anastomosing rivers
 Type of rivers
¾ Straight channels are the simplest form; they are single, without dividing
bars and have a low sinuosity (< 1.5).
¾ The sinuosity of a channel is calculated by dividing the distance between
two points measured along a channel by the straight-line distance between
those two points in a downstream direction.
¾ Braided rivers have divisions, bars in the river which are only
emergent when the level of water in the river is low; when the level
of water in the channel is up to the tops of the banks, the bars are
covered with water.
¾ Braided rivers have a low sinuosity
 Type of rivers
¾ Meandering rivers have high sinuosity (greater than 1.5): they
characteristically have bends in the river which change shape
through time by erosion of one bank and by deposition on the other.
¾ Anastomosing rivers consist of a number of separate channels
which divide and join along the river.
 Controls on river types
• The most important controls on the river type are the gradient, local
vegetation and the proportions of bedload and suspended load.
• On steeper slopes (greater than 0.1°) rivers tend to be braided and
relatively straight, whilst at lower gradients meandering rivers
predominate. Anastomosing rivers form on shallow gradients and it is
likely that bank stability plays an important role in causing the channels
to split.
• Fluvial systems can be made up of rivers of all or some of these types
of channel. The upper reaches of some rivers are braided because of
the steeper slopes. Larger river systems tend to have more extensive
meandering tracts.
 Catchment and discharge
¾ Catchment area is the area of ground which supplies water to a river system. Two
factors are important in controlling the supply of water to a river system:
¾ The size of the catchment area: a small area has a more limited capacity for storing
water in the soil and as ground water than a large one.
¾ The climate: catchment areas in temperate or tropical regions which have regular rainfall
remain wet throughout the year and keep the river supplied with water.

¾ Discharge is the volume of water flowing in a river in a time period.

¾ Ephemeral rivers are dry for long periods of time and only experience flow after
there has been sufficient rain in the catchment area.

¾ The line of the deepest part of the channel is called the thalweg. The existence of
the thalweg and its position in a channel are important to the scouring of the banks
and the sites of deposition in all channels.
Patterns of rivers
¾Most rivers exhibit a tributary drainage pattern in which small streams converge to form larger
trunk channels.
¾ Tributary river systems are efficient at carrying sediment through the system, and the
accumulation of great thicknesses of sediment does not usually result unless the lower reaches of
the river are areas of continued subsidence.
¾ In basins of internal drainage( where rivers do not reach the sea) the rivers may be initially
tributary in the areas of erosion, but upon reaching the area of deposition they become
distributary. In a distributary systems the rivers split or bifurcate, branching into smaller rivers &
streams in a downstream direction (the figure).
¾ Most of the bedload of a river is deposited along the distributary tract of the river.
 Modern rivers
￭ Braided rivers are characterized by a dominance of braid bars; meandering
rivers primarily contain point bars; in straight (and most anastomosing) rivers
bars are almost absent
¾ The bedload is deposited as bars of sand or gravel in the channel which are
exposed at low flow stages, giving the river its braided form.
¾ flow occurs between the bars and will usually be strongest along the thalweg
in the deepest part of the channel. Along the thalweg the coarsest material will
be transported and deposited.
 Braided rivers
¾ Most of the bedload of the braided river accumulates on bars within the
channel or at the channel margins.
¾ Bars are classified into four types:
¾ Longitudinal bars are elongate along the axis of the channel.
¾ Transverse bars are wider than they are long, spreading across the channel
¾ Crescentic bars are linguoid bars with apex pointing downstream.
¾ Compound bars are built up consisting stratified gravels with lenses of cross
bedded sands or lenses of gravel in sandy bar deposits.
Sedimentary log of braided river
¾ A fining upward succession can sometimes
be recognized in braided river deposits.
¾ The coarsest deposits at the base of the
channel are those carried in the thalweg in
the areas between bars.
¾ In gravelly braided river the bar deposits will
commonly consists of cross stratified
granules, pebbles or rarely cobbles in a
single set.
¾ A sandy bar composed of stacked sets of
subaqueous dune deposits will form a
succession of cross bedded sands.
¾ At the top finer sands or silts represent the
abandonment of the bar when it is no longer
actively moving.
 Meandering rivers
• Meanders develop by the erosion of the bank closest to the thalweg accompanied
by deposition on the opposite side of the channel.
• Deposition occurs where the flow is sluggish and the bedload can no longer be
carried.
• With continued erosion of the outer bank and deposition of bedload on the inner
bank the channel develops a bend and meander loops are formed.
• The deposits of a meaner bend develop a characteristic profile of coarse material at
the base, normally sands and fine gravels, becoming progressively finer up the
inner bank.
2. Overbank environments are dominated by fine-grained facies
(predominantly muds)
• Natural-levee deposits are wedges of sediment that form adjacent to the
channel, dominated by fine sand and silt exhibiting planar stratification or
(climbing) ripple cross stratification
• Crevasse-splay deposits are usually cones of sandy to silty facies with both
coarsening-upward and fining-upward successions, and are formed by small,
secondary channels during peak flow
• Flood-plain deposits are the most distal facies, consisting entirely of
sediments deposited from suspension, and are volumetrically very important
(mainly in low-energy fluvial settings)
Erosion and deposition along
a meandering stream
 Sedimentary log of meandering river
¾ The faster flow in the more central, deeper
parts of the channel forms subaqueous
dunes in the sediment, which develops
trough or planar cross bedding as the sand
accumulates .
¾ Higher up on the inner bank where the flow
is slower, ripples from in the finer sand,
producing cross lamination.
In places where the bend in a meander belt exceed 180, whole sections of the
channel during flooding may become abandoned by the development of a new
channel which takes a shorter route.
The abandoned meander loop becomes isolated as an oxbow lake.
oxbow lake
An oxbow lake
 Point Bar Deposits

Point bar deposits grows laterally

through time
 Cut bank erosion

Point
bar
deposits
} Meander
loop
Formation of an Oxbow
Meandering stream
flowing from
top of screen
to bottom
Maximum
deposition Maximum
erosion
 Meander scars

Oxbow Lake

Oxbow
cuttoff
 Anastomosing rivers
¾ Multiple river channels with frequent branches and interconnections are seen in
places where the gradient is very low.
¾ These anastomosing tracts of rivers occur most commonly where the banks are
stabilized by vegetation which inhibits the lateral migration of channels but are also
known from more arid regions with sparse vegetation.
¾ New channels may develop as a consequence of flooding as the water makes a
new course across the floodplain, leaving an old channel abandoned.
¾ Recognition of anastomosing rivers in the stratigraphic record is problematic
because the key feature is that there are several separate active channels. In
ancient deposits it is not possible to demonstrate unequivocally that two or more
channels were active at the same time. A similar pattern may form as a result of a
single channel repeatedly changing position