River delta

Nile River delta, as seen from Earth orbit. Photo courtesy of NASA.

A delta is the mouth of a river where it flows into an ocean, sea, desert or lake, building outwards (as a deltaic deposit) from sediment carried by the river and deposited as the water current is dissipated. Deltaic deposits of larger, heavily-laden rivers are characterised by the river channel dividing into multiple streams (distributaries), these divide and come together again to form a maze of active and inactive channels. A related notion is estuary, which is another type of the river mouth.

Delta formation

This arcuate delta has formed on the south-west coastline of Greenland, near Narsarsuaq.

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Where delta formation is river-dominated and less subject to tidal or wave action, a delta may take on a multi-lobed shape which resembles a bird's foot. The Mississippi Delta is an example of this type.

The Ganges river delta in India and Bangladesh is one most fertile regions in the world.

The most famous delta is that of the Nile River, and it is this delta from which the term is derived, because the Nile delta has a very characteristic triangular shape, like the (upper-case) Greek letter delta ($\Delta$). Other rivers with notable deltas include the Ganges/Brahmaputra combination (this delta spans most of Bangladesh and West Bengal), the Niger, the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Sacramento-San Joaquin, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Danube, the Ebro, the Volga, the Lena, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, the Krishna-Godavari, the Kaveri, the Irrawaddy, and the Mekong.

In rare cases the river delta is located inside of a large valley and is called an inverted river delta. Sometimes a river will divide into multiple branches in an inland area, only to rejoin and continue to the sea; such an area is known as an inland delta, and often occur on former lake beds. The Niger Inland Delta is the most famous example; another is the Danube Inland Delta on the Little Alföld. The Okavango Delta is an example of a delta with no outlet to the sea.

Deltaic deposits that have formed into sedimentary rock can be seen in these Carboniferous Era rocks at a roadcut north of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. These rock formations, which sometimes contain coal, cap the thick series of sedimentary rocks of the Allegheny Plateau in eastern North America,

List of deltas

• Camargue (Rhône River Delta)
• Colorado River Delta
• Danube Delta
• Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta
• Indus River Delta
• Lena Delta
• Mekong Delta
• Mississippi River Delta
• Niger Inland Delta (inland delta)
• Niger River Delta (Oil Rivers)

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• Okavango Delta (inland delta)
• Pearl River Delta
• Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta
• Sacramento River Delta
• Volga Delta
• Yangtze River Delta
• Yukon Delta

External link

• Louisiana State University Geology - World Deltas