What geomorphological feature is formed when a meandering river cuts through the narrow neck of a loop during a flood event, abandoning the curved channel section?

💡 Solution & Explanation

An oxbow lake is formed when a severe flood breaches the narrow neck of a river meander, allowing water to take a straighter path and leaving the abandoned loop as a crescent-shaped water body. Alluvial fans are depositional cone-shaped landforms created where steep mountain streams debouch onto lowlands. Natural levees are raised ridges of sediment built up alongside river banks during repeated overbank flooding events. Meanders continuously migrate across floodplains through simultaneous outer bank erosion and inner bank deposition.