Oxbows on the Mississippi

Hey again,

Here's a neat shot of an oxbow lake in formation on the Mississippi...What's even more interesting is that the river diverted to a new path after an earthquake in the late 1800's. New decisions about how to divide states had to be made at this time (previously, they were divided by the middle of the river channel). The white lines show these state divisions. As you can see, the 'Kentucky Loop' as it's called (the peninsula jutting out with the river almost completely surrounding it), is actually a part of Kentucky (the state in the top-right of the shot), and is completely cut off from it! Tennessee is to the bottom right, Missouri takes up the left part of the shot. If you follow the white state lines up and down the river, you can see how the historical position of the river has been preserved, and parts of states get cut off from each other quite frequently (there are actually two more examples of this at the extreme top of the picture too!)

Oxbows are fun...

Eric