🏞️ Presets

Birdfoot (Mississippi)

Wave-dominated

Rising sea level

High sediment

River & basin

Sediment load: 1.0× River discharge: 1.0× Sea level: 0.0 m Wave energy: 0.2 Grain size: 0.5

Stats

Delta area—

Active channels—

Progradation—

Dominant type—

Sea level—

Years elapsed—

A river carrying sediment slows as it meets standing water, so it can no longer hold its load. Coarse grains drop first near the mouth (proximal); fine grains are carried further out (distal). Deposition raises the bed; when a channel chokes on its own sediment the flow avulses — jumping to a steeper path — and a branching distributary network builds the delta outward. Waves rework and smooth the shoreline, favouring a cuspate form over a ragged birdfoot.