Thanks Doug - the whole Gorge is full of cool geologic features and processes. I like how you can see where the sand bar is accumulating more of the silts from upriver just under the water surface.
Thanks Jim - at least in the current (pun intended) scheme of things it's growing since the flow is more or less regulated by the upstream dams. There is an upstream component of Sand Island out of the frame on the left that has trees growing on it. Almost the whole of the level ground in this scene is more sand deposits that are now forested over.
Thanks Jameel - I will confess that I wasn't specifically looking for that shaft of illumination when I took the shot and in fact it was one of a sequence of captures originally intended as a stitch candidate. The sun angle kind of crushed any hopes of that working out since the adjacent shot to the left was almost directly into the sun with unworkable light. The Gorge is a neat place for endlessly fascinating geology.
How nice. I can't dig 6 inches without encountering alluvial rocks. That makes it fun to dig holes for plants.
Not quite - particle size comes into play here. As water sheds particulates the speed of the flow dictates what dominates the deposits. The terrace we are on must have been in some really slow water so what we have is a super fine clay. You have to add sand to even use it for pottery. Streams and creeks have very steep erosion walls as they cut down. Quite unstable too - Amtrak keeps getting shut down by landslides near us.
