Read Chapter 13 of your textbook and review your lecture notes on streams. Sketch a meander in a stream, showing the areas of erosion and deposition.
How does the shape of a stream valley vary as you travel from the source to the end of the stream?
In-class lab exercises
Examine the aerial photograph of the Mississippi River. You should also open Google Earth and search for the location to explore the image.
How did these lakes form?
What evidence can you see for older ox-bow lakes that have now dried up? Describe this evidence, and label the locations on your photograph.
Go back to the image on Google Earth. In the ‘Layers’ menu, check the box entitled ‘Borders and Labels’. You will see the state boundary, superimposed on the photograph. Draw this boundary on the photograph, and add the symbol to your key. This boundary mostly follows the course of the Mississippi River, but deviates in a few places. Explain what has happened in the places where it deviates .
1. Draw a stream profile, showing the altitude of the stream from its source near Woodrow Road to where it enters the ocean at Princes Bay.
2. Draw two topographic profiles, illustrating the shape of the cross-section of the stream valley, one where the stream is at a height of 60ft and the other where the stream crosses Hylan Blvd. Each topographic profile should extend 2000 feet on either side of the stream.
Describe how the valley changes shape along the course of the stream, and why.
