Physical Processes
River Capture
Geomorphology
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River capture, also called stream capture or piracy, occurs when a stream with greater erosive power, usually because it drains to a lower base level or has a steeper gradient, erodes headward until it breaches the divide separating it from a neighbouring drainage and diverts that neighbour headwaters into its own channel. The captured stream below the point of diversion is left as an underfit misfit stream in an oversized valley, a mismatch that is often the clearest field evidence a capture occurred.
Facts
Process Type TimescaleTypically thousands to tens of thousands of years of headward erosion, though the final breach itself can occur within a single flood. 1 Sources
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