AIBU to think that ox-bow lakes are a hoax?

[BestZebbie]

As my son is studying rivers, he has been learning about the processes of erosion and deposition creating horseshoe shaped ox-bow lakes from meanders.

He wanted to know if there were any near us and following this I have fallen down a rabbit hole of trying to locate natural ox-bow lakes in England. There seem to be a handful where there is a man made cutting straightening the river, and millions of big loops that are very ripe for breaking through, but if this is such an inevitable natural process, why aren’t they everywhere along all the major rivers in the country?
Do they fill back in after they form?

I realise that it takes a long time to erode one, but there has been enough time to create lots of other geological features (water-cut gorges, stalactites, mountains with sea fossils near the top etc) including the rivers themselves - and the UK is famously rainy, so it’s not like there is a lack of water to flow through the system!

Please advise, geography experts….

Oxbow lakes were definitely part of the National 5 curriculum when both my dc studied geography

As well as ox-bow lakes, I also remember learning about escarpments and contour lines. It’s all coming back to me, thanks to this thread! I used to enjoy all the drawing and colourful illustrations we had to do.

We went to Hereford and a lookout place (sorry I can’t remember where) and when I edged to the side there was a perfect oxbow lake. I even took a photo (on my phone, sorry) to send to the geography teacher.
And we learned about them 50 years ago in Australia-billabongs you know.

River Dee, near Chester: https://www.flickr.com/photos/43448521@N06/4236489909

Also river fans might like, these lovely 'Lidar' images: www.instagram.com/geo_coe

There's a few small ones along the lower part of the Usk River just outside of Newport. It's difficult to see them from the ground but if viewed from higher ground looking down you can see them easily. When I spotted them I was so excited as I'd only read about them in books at school but my DC and DH were decidedly unenthusiastic.

Yes we did them and were taken to Arran to see one, can’t remember anything about it as I was just there to piss about with my mates. Scotland is a great example of a landscape shaped by glaciers.

Go on, say groyne and solifluction lobe to me....

I'm much too old for Nat 5s😂But thinking about it, maybe it's Standard Grade level which I didn't do.

I've never heard of a solifluction lobe. But growing up on the coast, groynes and that other favourite, longshore drift, were easily observable. As was slumping.

They dry up quite quickly. Often really hard to spot unless using satellite maps

Why would someone want to hoax this ?

Are you thinking people go out in the middle of the night digging oxbow lakes in order to prove that oxbow lakes really exist ?

A bit like crop circles ?

OMG. I cannot believe we spent so long learning about oxbow lakes when there’s hardly any of them!

Geologically they aren't really that significant.

But they are interesting to study as part of a greater geological process/evolution - the development of rivers, which makes them a useful case study/subject for beginner geography courses like GCSE.

I honestly don't remember spending "so long" learning about them. It might have been as much as 20 minutes, and 10 minutes of that would have been drawing a picture.

I imagine if any river has them in Suffolk it would be the River Stour

I grew up in Australia in the countryside (bush) there was a lot of rivers marked with dotted lines ---seasonal rivers for a few days now and than again

Same! And wave cut platforms on the beach at Seven Sisters. Though that was third year, our first year trip was just measuring the flow in Winterbourne Stream in Lewes

I hoped for this too! Come back bison lady, the sea serpents miss you.

Contour lines blew my mind, and have left me with a love of OS maps that lingers more than 50 years later.

We had to make a 3D model of a hill, based on an extract from OS maps. We were all given different ones to do.

Me too! Grew up in Bexhill 😁

Cuckmere Haven is fabulous.

I remember doing this in geography in 1976! There was some in the NewForest, not sure if they’re still there but always remember going on a school trip and my friend Joanne snogging Herbie on the back seat of the coach 😂

Yes, oxbow lakes just stay with you

Definitely. They are fascinating. Also the formation of stacks on the coast. Think there's one of those in Dorset?

Well if it was only 20 mins it was 20 mins we could have spent learning about volcanos or something cool

Oxbow lakes, crop rotation, and then we spent a geography field trip counting cars driving past a garden centre - they honestly managed to make an interesting subject into the dullest pair of tits ever

There were. Our geography class went there in the late 60's for a project. They're not there now though, the river is all curves again. (I go from Brighton to Eastbourne by bus quite frequently, so I'm speaking knowledgably) I think they've stopped straightening the riverbed.

I remember going to see an oxbow lake near the Balcombe Viaduct down in Sussex a lifetime ago. Wonder if it's dried up now?? We also did another field trip to a sewage treatment works. Ah the memories! Good times!!! Thank you for this thread 😂

In the UK we very intensively farm the land and that human action encouraged development of straighter water courses in the past. Ox-bow lakes got filled in as land was reclaimed.

In many ways this is no different to the way in which we now build roads. For safety purposes we straighten them so old long S-shaped bends in A roads have been gradually dissected with straightening lines of carriageway leaving curved laybys on near opposite sides.

If you want to see ox-bow lakes of some significance go on Google Earth and look at the Amazon. It is pretty huge and you can also get depressed by looking at the extent to which Bolsonaro's policies have degraded it further.