Rivers progress through three stages - youth, maturity, and old age - which are characterized by different erosion and deposition processes. In youth, the river erodes land rapidly as it flows quickly from high elevations. During maturity, the river begins to erode sideways, forming meanders. In old age, the river flows slowly at ground level and deposits its sediment load, forming lakes separate from the channel. Rivers shape landscapes through these processes and interact with human activities like transportation, recreation, and tourism.

1. Rivers are more than water
Keith Le Matti

2. Young, Mature, and Old Age
There are three different
STAGES of rivers: the
youthful stage; the Maturity
of a river; and the river’s Old
Age. The differences
between these types of
rivers are very obvious. They
all have very different
processes, and change /
communicate with the
landscape that surrounds
them in different ways.

3. Young, Mature, and Old Age
• Youth
• Another name for the
youth of a river is the
river’s source
• When a river is young, it
is fast
• It erodes the land faster
than in its older stages
• These rivers are located
high up in the mountains,
forests, etc, in landscapes
that have a very high
elevation
The youthful stage of a river

4. Young, Mature, and Old Age
Maturity
• In the maturity of a river, erosion changes
• The river begins to erode sideways (horizontally)
• This creates meaners (bends in the river) as it
moves closer to ground level (0 metres of elevation)

5. Young, Mature, and Old Age
Old Age
• The final stage in the river has many meanders
• It is the slowest stage of the river, and flows at almost ground level
• Here, deposition occurs
• The river lets go of its rocks and other materials (the load), which
is left at the bottom of the river
• These processes of the old river make lakes that are separate from
the river

6. Other types of rivers
We can identify different landscapes created by
rivers:
• Estuary
• Delta
• Lake
• Rejuvenated river
• Bays

7. Back to business…
Rivers are a lot more interesting than just being
water running through the world
Rivers provide so much life everywhere, without
rivers, forests and parts of the countryside
wouldn’t survive to the extent that it does
Rivers give life to villages, towns, and cities
through the nutrients (like little pieces of life)
they give to the green landscape

8. People and Rivers
We interact or communicate with rivers
• We use rivers for transport, build bridges to
move across the landscape
• We use rivers for sport and athletics
• Rivers are used for tourism
• People visit countries to see these beautiful
landscapes, and this gives money to the
governments of those countries

9. The River Nile - Egypt

10. The River Nile - Egypt
• It’s 4,150miles long, and it’s the second
longest course of water in the world
• However, most of the tourism in Egypt is
centred on this phenomenon

11. Estuaries
• Estuaries are bridge environments between
rivers and oceans
• They are influenced by river processes
• This includes deposition at the mature and old
age stages of a river, and erosion of the
youthful and mature stages
• They also see oceanic processes, for example
tidal waves, erosion of coastal areas, etc

12. Estuaries
• What was an estuary?
• Estuaries can come from river valleys near or
far from coasts that have been drowned by
flooding and / or high tides from the sea
• They can also be created by the movement of
plates, of oceanic into continental crust

13. Bays and estuaries
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrXAGY1
dmE

14. Bays and estuaries
• The Giants Causeway was formed when the
North American plate and the Euroasian plate
moved apart millions of years ago
• From the core of the earth, magma spilled
across the ocean as lava, and deposited these
landscapes of basalt rock

15. Bays and estuaries

16. Estuaries

17. Bays and Estuaries

18. Bays
• A bay is a part of the sea/ocean, or a lake
which is between two pieces of land on the
coast
• Bays can be created by the processes of
glaciation (ice), volcanism (volcanoes), and
changes in the sea
• Bays can also be estuaries

19. Bays
• The water in bays is calm, tranquil
• Because of the land on either side of the
water, winds are not strong
• The bay of Bengal is the world´s largest bay
• The land on either side is from two different
countries
• The continents moved apart, and the bay was
created

20. The Bay of Bengal

21. Dundalk Bay

22. Lakes
• A lake is a standing body of water
• What does this mean?
• It means that it has no connection with the
ocean
• They can be connected to rivers, that can
make the lakes bigger, or make them smaller

23. Lakes

24. Rivers on Mars
Life on other planets

25. This is Dao Vallis, an
interesting river system on
the surface of Mars.
It is a river that flows below
a large volcano named
“Hadriaca Patera.”
I think that the river has
communicated with the
volcano. This interaction
has made a number of
landforms between the
two landscapes.
We will compare it with
pictures of some rivers on
planet Earth.

26. Dao Vallis and Earth
Similarities
•Dao Vallis is constructed by big flood
called a “megaflood”, which was
strong enough to flood all of Spain.
•Valleys in the river channel are
similar to channels of rivers on Planet
Earth

27. Conclusions
• Look at the earth image on the bottom right,
then look at the image of Mars on the left, do
they look similar? What do you think?