How is an oxbow lake formed?

Question

I am a secondary 3 student (15 years old) and im doing a geography project on how oxbow lakes are formed. so far all ive found are complicated explanations which i dont get. can someone please give me an easy to understand explation?

it would help alot. tks =p

Answer 1

oxbows on the Mississippi river and probably others, are formed when the river changes course leaving parts of the old river bed as lakes..

Answer 2

I have studied Geography too so I will try to explain to you how an ox-bow lake is formed.

- Firstly it is formed usually at the middle or lower course of a river.

- The river has formed a meander, a long large curve or bend (like a "U" shape).

- Deposition takes place (deposing on the outer side of the river means that more land in consumed and the other side moves inwards.)

- Erosion takes place - wearing away (on the inner side of the meander and also on the other side moving them together.

- This process is repeated over and over again until the outsides of the river are joined.

- The river starts to ignore the now ox-bow lake as water supply to the lake is cut off and seperate from the river.

I tried to explain this as simple as possible however it will be hard to understand if you are not farmiliar with river terms. It is also easier to explain with diagrams.

- When meander bends become giant loops, there is a thin piece of land left between the beginning and the end of the meander. This is the meander neck.

- As the river neck becomes very narrow, the river can break through. For a short time, water flows both round the meander (which is now called a backwater) and across the meander neck.

- Eventually the river cuts off the backwater completely and flows across what used to be the meander neck. For a short time, an oxbow lake is left behind. It is called an oxbow lake because it is shaped like the old fashioned 'U' shaped yoke that was once used to hitch an ox to a plough. The oxbow lake lasts until it becomes overgrown with weeds and filled in with soil. This happens quite quickly as it is cut off from the main river and therefore doesn't get any water.

These websites may help you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/subjects/g...

Hope this helps, if you need anymore information then just ask it in the additional details.  :-)

Answer 3

An oxbow lake is formed when a meandering river cuts across

a curve in it's channel.

The river flows on leaving that curving piece of channel behind as a lake.

It's hard to be clearer without pictures.

As those 'S' bends get more curvy, as they tend to do because of the way the water cuts the outside of the channel, they eventually meet.

At that point the water takes the shorter course leaving that outside of the bend behind.