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Water
Running Water & Ground Water shaping our Earth
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Water Cycle | The unending circulation of Earth's water supply |
Infiltration | Movement of surface water into rock or soil through cracks and pores in the ground |
Stream Channel | The course the water in a stream follows |
Gradient | Slope or steepness of a stream channel |
Discharge | The volume of water flowing past a certain point in a given unit of time. |
Tributary | A stream that empties into another stream |
Meanders | A stream that has a course with many bends |
Bed Load | The solid materials like sediment too large to be carried in suspension in the stream's water that move along the bottom |
Capacity of a stream | The maximum load it can carry |
Delta | The accumulation of sediment formed where a stream enters a lake or ocean and eventually forms a triangular shape |
Natural Levee | A ridge made up mostly of coarse sediments that runs parallel with some streams |
Floodplain | A flat valley during a flood the river overflows its banks and floods the plain |
Flood | The discharge of a stream becomes so great that it exceeds the capacity of its channel and overflows its banks |
Drainage Basin | The land area that contributes water to a stream |
Divide | The imaginary line that separates the drainage basin of one stream from another |