Drainage PATTERNSand Their Significance
Drainage PATTERNSand Their Significance
Drainage PATTERNSand Their Significance
EMILIE R. ZERNITZ
Columbia University
ABSTRACT
A study of the patterns assumed by drainage lines suggests the existence of types
additional to those commonly recognized. A more detailed classification of drainage
patterns is herewith presented, in the belief that clearer conceptions regarding the
various types will increase their usefulness in interpreting structural controls of drain-
age evolution.
INTRODUCTION
The patterns which streams form are determined by inequalities
of surface slope and inequalities of rock resistance. This being true,
it is evident that drainage patterns may reflect original slope and
original structure or the successive episodes by which the surface
has been modified, including uplift, depression, tilting, warping, fold-
ing, faulting, and jointing, as well as deposition by the sea, glaciers,
volcanoes, winds, and rivers. A single drainage pattern may be the
result of one or of several of these factors. Moreover, as streams are
long lived, comprising among physiographic features "some of the
oldest survivors or surviving remnants and also some of the youngest
developments in response to earth movements," they may embody
a long record of the geologic history of a region. As Bailey Willis has
well said:
Those [streams] of an older generation often continue to exist in sections as
parts of a younger system, by which they have been captured and dismembered.
The direction of flow and the angles in the course thus register older and younger
controls which were inherent in the structure of the rocks or due to disturbing
earth movements.2
DENDRITIC DRAINAGE
TRELLIS DRAINAGE
other stream into which the primary tributaries enter. These second-
ary tributaries are usually conspicuously elongated and approxi-
mately at right angles to the streams into which they flow. The
term "trellis" should not be applied where but one set of tributaries
joins a master-stream at right angles,r for such may represent the
beginning of dendritic or of rectangular drainage; whereas the trellis
pattern implies a lattice effect which the elongated parallel secondary
tributaries furnish.
RADIAL DRAINAGE
1/2 mile
FIG. 4.-Section of gorge of Zambesi below Victoria Falls. (After Lamplugh.) Ap-
proximate scale: i mile = 2 inches.
for parts of their courses obliquely toward each other; and they may
even join. A new lava flow may spread across several valleys and
cause those parts of the drainage to unite. As erosion advances some
of the streams may become tributaries of their more aggressive
neighbors through capture. Gullies may develop on certain valley
walls, then grow head-
ward up the slope, and
therefore nearly parallel
to the main stream.
These are all parts of the
normal radial pattern.
Numerous examples of
radial drainage on un-
breached domes are
given in Jaggar's report
on the Black Hills.' Ra-
dial drainage on a mo-
nadnock is well shown
on the Mount Monad-
nock (N.H.) quadrangle.
Shasta Special (Calif.),
Mount Hood (Ore.-
Wash.) and Mount
Rainier National Park
(Wash.) quadrangles, as
as many of FIG. 5.-Radial drainage, Lahaina (Hawaii) quad-
well the
rangle. Scale i: 62,500.
Hawaiian topographic
sheets, show excellent radial drainage on volcanoes. Numerous
beautiful illustrations are found on maps of the Dutch East Indies.
ANNULAR DRAINAGE
1 mile
FIG. 6.-Beginnings of annular drainage, Elk Horn Peak, Black Hills. (From U.S.
Geol. Surv. Ann. Rept. 21, Part III, P1. XLI, p. 270.)
PARALLEL DRAINAGE
FIG. 8.-Pinnate drainage. (Sumatra's Westkust geologische Kaart van een gedeelte
van Het Gouvernementin 7 Bladen, ed. R. D. M. Verbeek [1875-79], Blad 5: Solok.)
Scale i: ioo,ooo.
plains the east-west trend of these particular rivers and their valleys
as due to the southward dip of the rocks and to a series of shallow
folds that are too faint to be noticeable to the eye but "sufficient to
affect the direction of running water and hence the lines of greatest
and least erosion."
The influence of joints and fractures upon drainage patterns is
likely to be greatly obscured or reduced by the manner in which
rocks disintegrate, each rock weathering after its own fashion accord-
ing to its mineralogical
composition and state
of aggregation.' On the
other hand, Jaggar's ex-
periments in producing
miniature drainage pat-
terns in the laboratory
led him to the conclusion
that river patterns are
too frequently attributed
to the influence of joints
and faults.' FIG. II.-Angulate drainage, northwestern part
of Huron-Ottawa territory, Ontario, Canada, 1896.
Figure II illustrates
Scale: 5 miles= i inch.
a modification of the
rectangular pattern. Parallelism due to faults and joints exists, but
the joinings form acute or obtuse angles and not right angles. To
call such drainage "rectangular" would be a misnomer, yet it is
sufficiently like the latter to warrant a somewhat similar name,
hence the term "angulate" is suggested. This drainage pattern is
found in the Timiskaming and Nipissing areas of Canada and in
parts of Norway.
A MODIFIED TYPE OF RADIAL DRAINAGE
pear and emerge again farther on in the same straight line. This is a
region of loess and sand, and the wind forms furrows in the easily
blown material. These furrows direct the courses of the streams.
The permeable nature of the loess and sand causes the streams to
disappear where the water table becomes low and to reappear where
it again reaches the surface. In the Senegal area many of the streams
are intermittent, as the area is a desert; but they are unusually
straight and markedly colinear in pattern. The sand, as in the
Budapest area, is easily blown into furrows or elongated dunes be-
tween which streams flow after infrequent but heavy rain storms.
The uniform composition of the sandy surface and the torrential
character of the temporary streams are additional factors in causing
the very straight courses. Colinear drainage is usually part of a
larger parallel pattern,
but its peculiar character
justifies treating it sepa-
rately.