Chapter 16.8 - Drainage Patterns
Rectangular Drainage Pattern
A drainage pattern characterized by numerous right angle bends that develops on jointed or fractured bedrock.
Water Gap
A pass through a ridge or mountain in which a stream flows.
Dendritic Drainage Pattern
A stream system that resembles the pattern of a branching tree.
Antecedent Stream
A stream that continued to down-cut and maintain its original course as an area along its course was uplifted by faulting or folding.
Superposed Stream
A stream that cuts through a ridge lying across its path. The stream established its course on uniform layers at a higher level without regard to underlying structures and subsequently down-cut.
Trellis Drainage Pattern
A system of streams in which nearby parallel tributaries occupy valleys cut in folded strata.
Radial Drainage Pattern
A system of streams running in all directions, away from a central elevated structure, such as a volcano.
Stream Piracy
Diversion of the drainage of one stream that results from the headward erosion of another stream.
Headward Erosion
The extension upslope of the head of a valley due to erosion.