Meander Paths and Oxbow Lakes
The Emily Dickinson Trail, one of the Town’s “Literary Trails,” follows Amherst College land next to the Fort River. The river next crosses under West Street and runs westerly through Hadley to the Connecticut River. The Fort River cut its meandering course into sand, silt and mud left behind when glacial Lake Hitchcock drained 13,000 years ago. The process of meander formation is discussed in The Dynamic Modern Connecticut River exhibit at the Beneski Museum of Natural History. Almost all rivers in areas of low relief meander in a serpentine course that shifts across their floodplains over time. The curvature of the meanters increases over time because erosion occurs on the outside bends of the river, where the water velocity is highest, and deposition occurs on the inside bends, where the velocity is much lower. Eventually, the bends pinch off, forming a closed, semicircular pond known as an oxbow lake, and the river temporarily resumes a straighter, more direct course.
