Mackinaw River Meanders and other rivers

While looking for the old Chicago & Alton bridge over the Mackinaw River, I noticed that some of the "Mackinaw River" labels were not on the river. So I looked some more along the river and found this extreme of two cut-throughs since someone at Google created the road map from a satellite image.

Satellite

Road Map

That river does some serious movement considering how small it is.

Satellite

Update:
I decided I'm not going to do a separate posting for each river that meanders. Rather I'll collect this evidence of the power of flowing water in this posting.

See Wabash River Meanderings for several examples of the river changing its banks including a rather recent cut-through at Grayville, IL.

An article about two tracks being washed out that includes a video. I love the quote: “You got a lot of people working on this.” The article explained that you may have a lot of people talking about this, but the Department of Transportation is not allowed to work on saving Highway 7 because the land is privately owned. The caption for the video indicates the railway is unused. I've seen a lot of single track routes that are unused, but this is the first time I have seen a 3-track route being idle. The price of steel scrap must be real low.

Elizabeth Gilbert posted

Dear Ones:

I want to share something beautiful with you today. This is a map of the Mississippi River, created in 1944 by a cartographer named Harold Fisk.

It’s called a “meander map”.

It demonstrates all the various paths that the Mississippi has taken over the millennia. The different colors represent moments in history when the river jumped her banks and changed her course dramatically. Native Americans used to move their settlements along with the river’s constant shifts and changes, but Americans saw things differently. In the 1940s, the Army Corps of Engineers decided to lock down the Mississippi River into a certain course. They built walls and levees and declared: “These are now the official boundaries of the Mississippi. She doesn’t move an inch from HERE.”

Nature, of course, has had different plans.

I’m bringing this up today, because I’ve been thinking lately about the ways that I keep trying to control my own nature. I see the rules and boundaries that I have set for myself over the years, and how often they have failed. I think about the vows I’ve made to myself and others about where I’m going to be next year, or who I am going to be next year. Endless, expensive, stress-inducing efforts to civilize the river of my being.

But if you were to look at the history of my life, it looks a lot like this map right here. This map could be a portrait of my heart’s own journey.

Maybe yours, too.

I often say that, after a certain age, every woman in the world could write a memoir called: NOT WHAT I PLANNED. We change. Life changes. We often feel shame, confusion and anger about about those shifts and pivots. But what if we just trusted the river? She seems to know where she wants to go.

Onward. LG

William Reynolds shared

Denise Sands Dodson posted
Johanna Pettus Brown

https://publicdomainreview.org/.../maps-of-the-lower...

Here's a link to clearer images with some of the history.

White River

While looking for the abandoned Big Four Bridge across the White River, I noted a rather fresh sandbar. As I looked upstream, I found more including this set of sandbars.

Satellite

First of all, note that the river has moved a lot since some one at Google labeled the river. Secondly, you can start a office pool as to when the base of that bend is going to cut through leaving a rather complicated (curvy) oxbow lake. I think of Southern Indiana as being rather hilly. But obviously this part is rather flat to have such pronounced and dynamic meanders. Then when I was studying the new power plant at Edwarsport, IN, I noticed a long stretch of  oxbow lakes.

Satellite

Noticing the freshness of the sandbars in the first image above, I checked the next downstream water gauge station, which is in Newberry, IN, for flood activity. The recent crest information does show there has been significant flood activity during the last couple of years. A Major Flood Stage was missed by just 3/4 of a foot.

Recent Crests
(1) 18.47 ft on 07/16/2017 (P)
(2) 11.68 ft on 06/28/2017 (P)
(3) 23.25 ft on 05/08/2017 (P)
(4) 17.20 ft on 01/22/2017 (P)
(5) 13.64 ft on 08/17/2016 (P)
(6) 15.91 ft on 04/14/2016 (P)
(7) 13.69 ft on 02/26/2016 (P)
(8) 20.20 ft on 01/01/2016 (P)
(9) 19.46 ft on 07/18/2015
(10) 17.10 ft on 07/03/2015

Flood Categories (in feet)

Major Flood Stage:	24
Moderate Flood Stage:	19
Flood Stage:	13
Action Stage:	8
Low Flow (in KCFS):	0.372

Edwardsport also has a water gauge, and it also shows 10 crests above flood stage happened during 2016 and 2017.

Mississippi

Forgotten Railways, Roads, and Places posted

Mississippi River, River Meander Map Print 1944, by Harold Fisk Cartographer

https://ebay.to/2yrtrCJ

 

Geomorphological Features posted
This satellite photograph of the Songhua River in China illustrates how a meandering river can shape the surrounding landscape. (Credit: Earth Observation - NASA)

Geomorphological Features posted
Snake River, Alaska (Taken by Jerry Ting)
[There are several "aptly named" comments.]

Bad River in South Dakota

It has developed a meander in the last decade that washed out railroad tracks during the Flood of 2019. And if you look upstream on a satellite image, you can find a lot of historical meandering.