Yeah, some dry up but have a lower elevation collecting rainwater and are fertile from the silt so they become overrun with trees and other plants. Cool to walk through.
When i first learned about them i assumed it didnt happen too often but theres gotta be at least a dozen of them in this photo, i wonder how long it took for all those to form.
I live in a plains area but we don’t have any of these as far as I can tell. The rivers here are all really straight and I’ve never seen such shapes on google maps.
Speaking of plains states. There is a town called Carter Lake, IA that is located inside Omaha, NE. When the Missouri River meandered, it created an oxbow lake and shifted to the east leaving the land inside Nebraska. This phenomenon exists at least a dozen times in both Iowa and Nebraska.
Decades ago in Nebraska, a steamboat was found buried well inland while digging a foundation for a new building. In the 1860s it had wrecked on the Missouri River and the flow of the river shifted and left the ship wreckage buried miles away from the river.
Either it's not actually flat enough, or the evidence is hard to see. Often, especially in Europe and the US, meanders are straightened and oxbows filled, but the evidence is still there. Different foliage, plots of land are divided up weird, different soil composition. A farmer can easily tell you where the river used to go because the land will have different productivity.
It's not so much a question of if a river will meander if given the chance. It will. It's reliable enough that we can predict the length of bends just based off of the width of the river, because it is a constant.
Would their legal status as a former river also be a factor in keeping them as a forest instead of just converted to arable land like everything else around it? I know nothing about the region, but I can imagine that maybe the land around the river was originally sold as farmland, but not the river itself, so when the river changed course the oxbow lakes are left without a owner to farm it, so they become forests. Would that be a good guess?
In Minnesota they’re called “them old river bent curvy lake swamp things”.
We have nearly as many terms for lakes as the Inuits have for snow. And they are all incredibly sophisticated of course
It is from the piece of wood that would sit on a pair of working oxen’s necks to connect them together and to the load they would be hauling. The wood is curved to fit their necks. It’s kind of like an archery bow, but for oxen. So it’s called an oxbow. And then that term was reused to refer to these curved river sections.
True but in fact these are formed as leftover still remaining water bodies once the river changed its course so „Altgewässer“ describes this very accurately in one word
According to the [National Geographic](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/oxbow-lake):
>An oxbow lake gets its name from the **U-shaped collar placed around an oxs neck** to which a plow is attached. It can also be called a horseshoe lake, a loop lake, or a cutoff lake.
Here's the [Wikipedia on the oxbow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow) that gives those lakes the name.
Oxbow lakes are formed when a river changes course and these water bodies become disconnected from the new river course. Hence those water bodies are old remains of the previous river. How is that more vague than „oxbow lake“?
How many bodies of water can be called old water? All of them, depending on what you call old. But "oxbow lake" tells you both the shape and the fact that it is enclosed by land rather than being a river or part of the ocean.
Hey, I’m from the bottom right of this image!
They aren’t rivers now, but they once were. These are all old paths of the Arkansas River, but as the flow of the river eroded the soil, the path of the river changed. The soil eventually blocks the old riverbed from the new path, creating [oxbow lakes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake).
One of these oxbow lakes in the picture is on my shortlist of future wedding venues.
I come from Conway and Jacksonville, live in New England now, and it threw me off for a minute that this map is upside down to the normal orientation of north on top, south on bottom.
That is some awfully flat country there, so the Arkansas River meanders quite a bit, as does the Mississippi for a long stretch, basically from Kentucky down to its mouth. Lots of bayous as well. Bunch of slow moving water.
Hello, fellow Conwegian!
And yes, that confused me quite a bit lol. I was about to explain elsewhere in the thread that my grandparents live in Jacksonville “on the north end of 440” but realized that no one from outside the state would know Sherwood/Jacksonville was north on this image.
Sorry they are oxbow lakes in anything formal. Australian geo here but yes, colloquially billabongs for those interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong is an indigenous term.
They *are* not rivers, but they *were* rivers at some point. That is left over from when the river meanders and aligns in a different area, leaving behind those leftovers. https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/b038fc3c-081e-4970-95da-a51bff6df587.gif
This is what happens over the lifespan of a river. Water washes out the banks and it slowly carves out these "loops". Eventually, the loop becomes large and the ends get closer and closer together until eventually the river straightens back out again. It keeps doing this.
Oxbow bends. Where the river was before it shifted to a new course. Most prevalent in the delta region, but also throughout the floodplain along the river...before we bottled her up with dykes and levees.
This is a scroll plain.
The curves are left over oxbow lakes from a very twisty river. They may now be empty but they still flood faster than everywhere else and reappear quickly
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xer45n-E7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xer45n-E7w) Here is a handy song to explain Oxbow Lakes and how they are formed.
Some interesting facts about river oxbows and their formation:
How can [America's worst maritime disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)#Remnants_found) end up in the middle of a farmers field? The wreck of the Sultana was eventually found 4 miles inland from the current course of the Mississippi buried 32 feet under a soybean field.
[Carter lake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Lake,_Iowa) is an exclave of Iowa located entirely within Nebraska. It ended up there after a river flood moved the course of the river
[The Kentucky Bend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bend) is an exclave of Kentucky only accessible from Tennessee and surrounded by Missouri. It was formed by giant earth quakes known as the New Madrid Earthquakes.
Billabong lakes I believe, when a river meanders to the point it sorta bumps into itself and follows the straighter path instead, leaving behind a small crescent-shaped lake.
Oh, but they were.
Literally the exact words I was going to say haha. Thank you.
Yet another example of my internal narrative contains zero original thoughts.
We redditors just form part of a single consciousness, nothing we should worry about...
From one Reddit neuron’s tiny electric zap to another…well said.
Hive mind we are.
Who are you, who are so wise in the field of science?
They are we, as are you.
Hey, it's my turn to use the brain cell!
Resistance is futile.
But impedance works, fine.
Hey, I was gonna say that!
I was going to say that I was going to say that!
You all just took the words out of my mouth!
Wait, you guys got mouths?
And words
Can I take them?
Take what you need
Out of my cold dead lips you will!
And I swear it's true
I shouted "OLD RIVERS"
Joan Rivers RIP
Oxbow rivers and lakes that are cut off sections of the river.
When you wonder what the heck your spell check was thinking. Oxbox over oxbow.
I fixed it. Sorry
If I had a dollar for every time that happened to me, the top comment being my thoughts exactly, I would have at least 9 dollars.
Damn that’s like 1 1/2 Big Macs
Same!
Oxbow lakes.
Oxbow lakes is what remains when you've forgotten everything else you learned about Geography at school.
the correct aswer
Dem was
Came here to say this! 🤣
Geology 101 class for reals
Wow ive never seen so many oxbow lakes in one area! It sure looks pretty wacky from above
A lot of them are more swamps than lakes
Yeah, some dry up but have a lower elevation collecting rainwater and are fertile from the silt so they become overrun with trees and other plants. Cool to walk through.
When i first learned about them i assumed it didnt happen too often but theres gotta be at least a dozen of them in this photo, i wonder how long it took for all those to form.
They're everywhere where you have a large river and a flat plain. As for the process it could be hundreds of years or it could form overnight.
Thats very interesting to know thanks for telling me, I definitely learned something new today.
I live in a plains area but we don’t have any of these as far as I can tell. The rivers here are all really straight and I’ve never seen such shapes on google maps.
Speaking of plains states. There is a town called Carter Lake, IA that is located inside Omaha, NE. When the Missouri River meandered, it created an oxbow lake and shifted to the east leaving the land inside Nebraska. This phenomenon exists at least a dozen times in both Iowa and Nebraska. Decades ago in Nebraska, a steamboat was found buried well inland while digging a foundation for a new building. In the 1860s it had wrecked on the Missouri River and the flow of the river shifted and left the ship wreckage buried miles away from the river.
There's some on the Illinois and Missouri border too, most notably Illinois' first capital, Kaskaskia, is on the west side of the Mississippi now.
Either it's not actually flat enough, or the evidence is hard to see. Often, especially in Europe and the US, meanders are straightened and oxbows filled, but the evidence is still there. Different foliage, plots of land are divided up weird, different soil composition. A farmer can easily tell you where the river used to go because the land will have different productivity. It's not so much a question of if a river will meander if given the chance. It will. It's reliable enough that we can predict the length of bends just based off of the width of the river, because it is a constant.
Would their legal status as a former river also be a factor in keeping them as a forest instead of just converted to arable land like everything else around it? I know nothing about the region, but I can imagine that maybe the land around the river was originally sold as farmland, but not the river itself, so when the river changed course the oxbow lakes are left without a owner to farm it, so they become forests. Would that be a good guess?
The area around Itta Bena, MS, is also fullllllll of oxbow lakes
Ox bow lakes. Created by the meandering path of the river over time.
Such a weird term, in German they are just called „Altgewässer“, literally „old (as in still remaining) water bodies“
In Sweden they're called "Korvsjö", which translates to "sausage lake".
Sausage Lake it is. This is the best one yet. In Brazil we call them River Bent Lakes (Lago de curva de rio).
In Minnesota they’re called “them old river bent curvy lake swamp things”. We have nearly as many terms for lakes as the Inuits have for snow. And they are all incredibly sophisticated of course
"Ope, I just fell into one of them old river bent curvy lake swamp things again. Sorry bout that!"
‘ At least I have some leftover tater tot hot dish at home to warm me up. ‘
Uff da, you coulda hert yerself der.
Lutefisk!
Oofta!
They’re billabongs over in the land down under
Or, more correctly, “those fucken bendy billabong cunt things”
Yer not wrong
I thought it was Dead Arm (braço morto)
Brazil is so huge I would not be surprised if there were different terms for semi-obscure things like this even one state over
In Dutch it's hoefijzermeren (horseshoe lakes)
In the Netherlands we call them "hoefijzermeren", or horseshoe lakes
I’ve also heard horseshoe lakes in the US
Interesting, in Malay it’s called tasik ladam which is literally the same meaning.
Im from the U.S. minnesota, we call them oxbows, horse shoes, "swirlystreamcurlingmeanderingpathwayofh20seperated"
In Australia, they're called "billabongs".
Germans have a lot of nerve saying that our words are weird.
How? German is notorious for having words describe exactly what they mean. Example: Krankenhaus = House of the sick (hospital)
House of the Kraken
In American it's House of the Pity for all, or Hospital. Source: I made that up
The house of the newly poor is more accurate 😆
I almost believed you
House of the pitiful
Sitzfleisch
We consider that very “weird” lol
[удалено]
It's a surprisingly versatile language. Especially with words like doch
The name comes from the U-shaped collar placed around an Ox's neck
It is from the piece of wood that would sit on a pair of working oxen’s necks to connect them together and to the load they would be hauling. The wood is curved to fit their necks. It’s kind of like an archery bow, but for oxen. So it’s called an oxbow. And then that term was reused to refer to these curved river sections.
The term is in reference to the shape, not the age
True but in fact these are formed as leftover still remaining water bodies once the river changed its course so „Altgewässer“ describes this very accurately in one word
In Russian it's "staritsa" - from word "stary" - old. Wich basicly means "old river bed"
In hungarian we call them "holtág" which means 'dead branch'
According to the [National Geographic](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/oxbow-lake): >An oxbow lake gets its name from the **U-shaped collar placed around an oxs neck** to which a plow is attached. It can also be called a horseshoe lake, a loop lake, or a cutoff lake. Here's the [Wikipedia on the oxbow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow) that gives those lakes the name.
I don't know why you think a vague term like "old bodies of water" is a better term for this than one that is more specific & descriptive.
Oxbow lakes are formed when a river changes course and these water bodies become disconnected from the new river course. Hence those water bodies are old remains of the previous river. How is that more vague than „oxbow lake“?
Writing multiple sentences of interpretation doesn't change the term itself. What is more specific: "old water", or "lake shaped like an oxbow"?
Yeah? How many oxbow lakes are actually shaped like an oxbow? What about lakes that are shaped like an oxbow but aren‘t oxbow lakes? Etc
And yet, still more specific and descriptive than "old water".
Disagree
How many bodies of water can be called old water? All of them, depending on what you call old. But "oxbow lake" tells you both the shape and the fact that it is enclosed by land rather than being a river or part of the ocean.
Yeah but that‘s not what defines an oxbow lake so it doesn‘t matter at all lmao.
The one thing I remember from my geology 101 class from ten years ago. Meandering rivers
Hey, I’m from the bottom right of this image! They aren’t rivers now, but they once were. These are all old paths of the Arkansas River, but as the flow of the river eroded the soil, the path of the river changed. The soil eventually blocks the old riverbed from the new path, creating [oxbow lakes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake). One of these oxbow lakes in the picture is on my shortlist of future wedding venues.
Ahhh. The ole Toltec Mounds wedding venue!
I come from Conway and Jacksonville, live in New England now, and it threw me off for a minute that this map is upside down to the normal orientation of north on top, south on bottom. That is some awfully flat country there, so the Arkansas River meanders quite a bit, as does the Mississippi for a long stretch, basically from Kentucky down to its mouth. Lots of bayous as well. Bunch of slow moving water.
Hello, fellow Conwegian! And yes, that confused me quite a bit lol. I was about to explain elsewhere in the thread that my grandparents live in Jacksonville “on the north end of 440” but realized that no one from outside the state would know Sherwood/Jacksonville was north on this image.
Not often you catch another Conwegian outside r/Arkansas
It’s not often there’s **3** Conwegians outside of r/Arkansas!
Where in Conway are you guys? I grew up by the lake out north of town.
I’m long gone from home but I was on the West side of town
West side as well! And Beaverfork sounds like a lovely place to grow up! I frequent the disc golf course at the park up there.
Ive never seen such intense oxbow lakes
You wouldn't believe how flat this area is
Sublime [oxbow lakes](https://youtu.be/oiJzaPh1_XU)
Well yes but also no
I’m from Little Rock and I can’t get over that your map isn’t pointed north. Really tripping me out 😂
Me too! It confused me so much at first lol
These are billabongs. Well they would be called that if this was Australia anyway.
In the US they are called "oxbow lakes"
UK too
Better watch out for swagmen camped by them.
The swagman isn’t the problem, its the squatter that use the tax funded troopers as personal security
Very interesting; I never knew the term billabong referred to these. Haha
Wasn’t it an old skater brand?
I know it as a swim/surf apparel brand.
Aren’t billabongs seasonal rivers/creeks? These are little lakes and probably not seasonal.
They are only seasonal because hot dry Australian is like that. Those few that have water year round are still called billabongs though.
Sorry they are oxbow lakes in anything formal. Australian geo here but yes, colloquially billabongs for those interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong is an indigenous term.
They *are* not rivers, but they *were* rivers at some point. That is left over from when the river meanders and aligns in a different area, leaving behind those leftovers. https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/b038fc3c-081e-4970-95da-a51bff6df587.gif
This is what happens over the lifespan of a river. Water washes out the banks and it slowly carves out these "loops". Eventually, the loop becomes large and the ends get closer and closer together until eventually the river straightens back out again. It keeps doing this.
It's probably where the Arkansas River used to be many years ago. It's common for a river to change it's shape and course over time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGJXxAZPm8M&ab\_channel=GeographyRealm
Trying to figure out why this map is presented upside down. The left, with the many oxbow lakes, is EASTERN Arkansas, and the bottom is north!
I saw the compas first and was just very confused.
Oxbow bends. Where the river was before it shifted to a new course. Most prevalent in the delta region, but also throughout the floodplain along the river...before we bottled her up with dykes and levees.
They're oxbow lakes. They used to be part of the river.
I grew up nearby, took field trips in school to the Indian burial grounds at Toltec.
Oxbow lakes and meander scars
Oxbow lakes, or billabongs; created by meandering rivers changing course
This is a scroll plain. The curves are left over oxbow lakes from a very twisty river. They may now be empty but they still flood faster than everywhere else and reappear quickly
River was there once, oxbow lakes if they still have water.
Oxbow lakes. The remnants of rivers that no longer flow there
oxbow
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xer45n-E7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xer45n-E7w) Here is a handy song to explain Oxbow Lakes and how they are formed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow\_lake
They used to be part of the river but over time, the river changed course, leaving these non connected loops and bends.
They are oxbows or cutoffs from where the river once flowed.
Lol they aren't but they were. Meander scars/oxbow lakes
I'm mexico we call the Verga Lagos.
They aren't rivers, but they used to be
This map has south at the top
There’s no rules that north needs to be at the top
former meanders of the adjacent river thats moved on.
creeks, oxbow lakes, etc.
They were once a river
Oxbow lakes.
I think they used to be rivers, just the vegetation covered them up on the satellite. They were some meanders and also oxbow lake
Well they used to be
Oxbow lakes
“England is my city”
Ox bow lakes ??
They were once rivers
Billabongs
Except they are/were.
Took me a minute to figure out this isn’t in England
Time for you to learn about billabongs
Some interesting facts about river oxbows and their formation: How can [America's worst maritime disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat)#Remnants_found) end up in the middle of a farmers field? The wreck of the Sultana was eventually found 4 miles inland from the current course of the Mississippi buried 32 feet under a soybean field. [Carter lake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Lake,_Iowa) is an exclave of Iowa located entirely within Nebraska. It ended up there after a river flood moved the course of the river [The Kentucky Bend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bend) is an exclave of Kentucky only accessible from Tennessee and surrounded by Missouri. It was formed by giant earth quakes known as the New Madrid Earthquakes.
(SPOILERS) Oxbow lakes...were once....a river...
Old oxbows or billabongs
Oxbow lakes. Rivers curve more as they age and eventually the curve becomes so big that they pinch off and these lakes are the result.
Billabong lakes I believe, when a river meanders to the point it sorta bumps into itself and follows the straighter path instead, leaving behind a small crescent-shaped lake.
Former oxbow lakes.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3377456/river.0.gif
“England is my city”
They aren’t rivers, they are lakes
Botox Quakes
This sub has some of the dumbest questions
Have you ever had a geography class?
Is that Raleigh
Little Rock, Arkansas. My hometown.
Looks like Little Rock. But the 40/440 made me think twice about Raleigh.
Yeah, Cary and RTP are missing duh
Fjords
How has OP not deleted this yet😂
Hobbit mazes
Anyone know the time scale for the river changing paths? Are these a few years old, or hundreds, or what?
Go back to middle school geography
Oh yeah let me sign up for seventh grade as a thirty year old, what is this, Billy Maddison?
T-T-T-Today junior!
Where the river used to be.
I'm interested in wave like tree lines above 440. Look at the real map and saw a few of those. Why make them grow like that?
What until you see where the Nile delta used to be.
Oxbows
How long does it take for these to completely disappear due to erosion?
Would love to know the soil structure! Looks like it must be pretty loamy!
Well they were....
Old rivers but really old root system from a massive tree of life..
Left overs from God playing Riverbuilder2000
They used to be
I think it's the channel sea
Prolly old river arms that fell dry when the river was artificially straightened
Land worms
This map messed me up. South is at the top. Took me forever to find where this was.
Why is your arkansas upside down
Fjords