An alluvial system is a landform produced when a stream or river, that is, some channelized flow (geologists call them all streams no matter what their scale) slows down and deposits sediment that was transported either as bedload or in suspension. The...

An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain. A convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is...

Abstract: The geometries of alluvial fans and their upland catchments subject to known rates of basin subsidence V and upland precipitation P, respectively, are compared with predictions from a quantitative analysis of an idealized landscape. We find that the dimensionless ratio V/P explains...

Abstract: We document the neglected phenomenon of lateral erosion ('toe-cutting') of alluvial fans by non-incising axial river channels. Field examples from the Holocene of the Big Lost River basin, Idaho and the Plio-Pleistocene of the Rio Grande Rift, New Mexico help to establish architectural...