Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ox Bow Lake Formation, As Seen By the Google Earth Time Machine

Posted by timothy on from the enhance-enhance-enhance dept.

djl4570 writes with a link to this "excellent study in the gradual change of geographic features as a river meander becomes an ox bow lake when the river current cuts through the meander. The same Google Earth feature can be used to view changes in urban and suburban geography. The historical data is a work in progress. The region I looked at only has images going back to 1993. Other regions will have a different mix and depth of data."

27 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Ox Bow Lake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...or Mosquito Paradise?

  2. this takes me back... by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

    ...to high school geography!

    This'll be a nice refresher, it was over 20 years ago and I don't remember a lot of it.

    --
    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    1. Re:this takes me back... by davester666 · · Score: 1

      You can't remember due to of your love of paste.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re:this takes me back... by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      um... nope, we used pens and paper notebooks.

      This article should be fairly significant for me, as I live right on the neck of a meander of a major river.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  3. global warming by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've plotted a graph of all the ox bow lake formations found using Google Maps, and guess what? Not one formed before 1993. What happened in 1993? That's right, CO2 levels hit 350ppm. Coincidence? I think not. We need to save our ox bows, donate today.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. Wait a few million years by rossdee · · Score: 1

    and you can watch continental drift in action

    1. Re:Wait a few million years by kanweg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You can view that in the cinema right now.

      Scratch
      Full disclosure: I was in the movie

      In the Science museum in Paris they have a wall with a crack that was closed when the museum was opened. They move the walls apart over the years by the same distance that Europe and America drift apart. There was quite a wide crack when I was there many years ago. By now you must be able to walk through it quite easily.

      Bert

    2. Re:Wait a few million years by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Informative

      Over the course of your lifetime, Europe and America will have drifted about 20 feet further apart.

      (Best estimate seems to be 5-10 cm/yr. Split the difference and multiply by 75 years; that's about 5.6 metres.)

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re:Wait a few million years by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      I hope they got plenty of filler foam.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    4. Re:Wait a few million years by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      No but they get plenty of filler lava.

    5. Re:Wait a few million years by kanweg · · Score: 1

      Not sure whether you're joking. I know I was: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667889/

      Bert

    6. Re:Wait a few million years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Plate motions world-wide range from under 1cm/year to about 14 cm/year maximum at the present time. Across the Atlantic it depends upon where you measure the spreading, because along any plate boundary the rates of motion will inevitably vary (it's a feature of motion on a spheroid), but the Mid-Atlantic Spreading Ridge is generally a fairly slow spreading ridge. 1 to 4 cm/yr relative spreading rate is typical. Between North America and Europe is probably 2-3 cm/yr, depending on which path you measure across.

    7. Re:Wait a few million years by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Compare that to ocean-level rise, which is measured in mm (around 3mm per year).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re:Wait a few million years by HybridST · · Score: 1

      It's about a car-length-does that count?

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
    9. Re:Wait a few million years by HybridST · · Score: 1

      US 70s oldsmobile. I think the conversion in PI*USOlds=Eurocars...i may bo off by a factor of 2 though.

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
  5. Re:global warming-Testing by ZosX · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    "(Disclaimer: I'm not a conspiracy theorist, nut.)"

    But your writings say otherwise.... :P

    --
    zosxavius photography
  6. Re:My eyes, they hurts by cyn1c77 · · Score: 1

    Apparently a Texan geology student.

    He probably hasn't even noticed that it is hard to read. The twitter generation doesn't bother to read their post anymore.

  7. Re:My eyes, they hurts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I make sites just like this on purpose to troll the friends that I do have who are web designers. Only takes a few minutes with a wordpress install and some themes, then I just customize them to have horrible text/bg color combos such as black/brown, red/orange, etc

  8. Re:My eyes, they hurts by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    You are evil. Pure evil.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  9. Re:My eyes, they hurts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Owner of the blog here. I follow the sources of my traffic back to their origins and I'm sorry the text bothered you. I've fixed it. However, your witty remark comes with a price. You owe me your eyeballs.

  10. Re:My eyes, they hurts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So you're the dipshit who designed the Tubcat site.

  11. Re:global warming-Testing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A "forum slide", as discussed in the document, can't happen on /.; it relies on typical vbulletin/phpbb/etc. software with independent non-branching threads, which are sorted by the time of the last post in the thread. /. has articles always sorted by the article's time, and posts within an article are sorted first by parent, with sibling posts further sorted by time and/or moderation score.

  12. Re:global warming-Testing by robthebloke · · Score: 1

    Rule #4: Thou shalt not post a link to dancing hamsters on thou'st geocities page.
    Rule #5: Thou shouldst use Altavista search, for it is the finest search engine there is.

    Or have you hipsters been trying to instagram the original rules or something?

  13. Map view doesn't show the cut-through by IcyHando'Death · · Score: 2

    The blog provides the coordinates, 2915'34.29"N 09534'08.85"W, so you can view the formation on Google maps. If you check it out in map view, it still shows the original river bend with no cut-through.

    1. Re:Map view doesn't show the cut-through by OverZealous.com · · Score: 1

      The blog author provides the coordinates (and not a link) so you can view the formation on Google Earth not Google Maps. Google Earth has the timeline slider.

      That being said, it's relatively easy to create a link to Google Earth. This should open the lake in Google Earth, if you have it installed.

  14. Emergence by BonThomme · · Score: 1

    Ox Bow Lakes blew my mind in junior high. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was my first introduction to emergence, long before anyone was talking about emergence.

  15. Billabong for our "Down Under" friends by Red+Storm · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just in case our "Upside down" compatriots in Australia are confused about an Ox-Bow lake, you would know them as a Billabong, yes body of water that the Swagman boiled his billy by and ultimately jumped into is real...

    --
    ---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....