Meander

Were we talking about the power of running water? We were. But that was Ice-cold in Greenland, [chekkitout the more famous Ice Cold in Alex with added product placement] although not actual ice. I just picked up from metafilter a two year old link to Landsat imaging for course of the Ucayali River in Peru by Zoltan Sylvester. Landsat has been taking serial photos of the Earth from space since 1972 and these data have been immensely rich and useful documenting the changing face of the planet: most dramatically shown in Zoltan's clip of the developing ox-bows and bends in the Ucayali.  Don't think of Peru as all towering cliffs and Andean mountains like Machu Picchu or Cuzco; the Eastern side of the country forms a major catchment for the Amazon basin and it is as flat as Holland - hence the meandering flow.  Meander is named for the river in SW Turkey which the Greeks named Μαίανδρος; Maíandros; and the Turks borrowed as Büyük Menderes while English generalised the name for any river that writhes across the landscape. Super gallery of [static] images of ox-bows and loops on MyCarta.