SUSPENDED-LOAD RIVER

A river with a sediment load that is dominated by fine-grained sediment carried as suspended load. Such rivers are typical of low channel gradients. Because of the cohesive nature of the sediment (see cohesion), they develop stable channel banks and typically have a high-sinuosity, anastomosing channel pattern. The appearance of suspendedload rivers in the geological record may be linked to the evolution of land plants, which provided bank stability through root-binding and indirectly through the release of clay minerals by chemical weathering

in soils.

[See alsogravel-bed river, sand-bed river]