ALLUVIAL FAN An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads,

typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatterplain. A convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is called a bajada, or compound alluvial fan.

A vast alluvial fan blossoms across the desolate landscape between the Kunlun and Altun mountain ranges that form the southern border of the Taklamakan Desert inXinjiang. The left side is the active part of the fan, and appears blue from water flowing in the many small streams FORMATION As a stream's gradient decreases, it drops coarse-grained material. This reduces the capacity of the channel and forces it to change direction and gradually build up a slightly mounded or shallow conical fan shape. The deposits are usually poorly-sorted. This fan shape can also be explained with a thermodynamic justification: the system of sediment introduced at the apex of the fan will tend to a state which minimizes the sum of the transport energy involved in moving the sediment and the gravitational potential of material in the fan. There will be iso-transport energy lines forming concentric arcs about the discharge point at the apex of the fan. Thus the material will tend to be deposited equally about these lines, forming the characteristic fan shape. IN ARID CLIMATES Alluvial fans are often found in desert areas subject to periodic flash floods from nearby thunderstorms in local hills. The typical watercourse in an arid climate has a large, funnel-shaped basin at the top, leading to a narrow defile, which opens out into an alluvial fan at the bottom. Multiple braided streams are usually present and active during water flows. Phreatophytes are plants that are often concentrated at the base of alluvial fans. They have long tap roots 30 to 50 feet (9.1 to 15 m) to reach water that has seeped through the fan and hit an impermeable layer, sometimes collecting in springs and seeps. These

stands of shrubs cling to the soil at their bases and often form islands of habitat for many animals as the wind blows the sand around the bushes away.Alluvial fans are also found on Mars, descending from some crater rims over their flatter floors. Observations of fans in Gale crater made by satellites from orbit have now been confirmed by the discovery of fluvial sediments by the rover Curiosity. IN HUMID CLIMATES Alluvial fans also develop in wetter climates. In Nepal the Koshi River has built a megafan covering some 15,000 km2 (5,800 sq mi) below its exit fromHimalayan foothills onto the nearly level plains where the river traverses into India before joining the Ganges. Along the upper Koshi tributaries, tectonic forces elevate the Himalayas several millimeters annually. Uplift is approximately in equilibrium with erosion, so the river annually carries some 100 million cubic meters (3.5 billion cu ft) of sediment as it exits the mountains. Deposition of this magnitude over millions of years is more than sufficient to account for the megafan.[5] In North America, streams flowing into California's Central Valley have deposited smaller but still extensive alluvial fans. That of the Kings River flowing out of the Sierra Nevada creates a low divide, turning the south end of the San Joaquin Valley into an Endorheic basin without a connection to the ocean. FLOOD HAZARDS Alluvial fans are subject to floodingand can be even more dangerous than the upstream canyons that feed them. Their slightly convex perpendicular surfaces cause water to spread widely until there is no zone of refuge. If the gradient is steep, active transport of materials down the fan creates a moving substrate that is inhospitable to travel on foot or wheels. But as the gradient diminishes downslope, water comes down from above faster than it can flow away downstream, and may pond to hazardous depths. In the case of the Koshi River, the huge sediment load and megafan's slightly convex transverse surface conspire against engineering efforts to contain peak flows inside manmade embankments. In August 2008 high monsoon flows breached the embankment, diverting most of the river into an unprotected ancient channel and across surrounding lands with high population density. Over a million people were rendered homeless, about a thousand lost their lives and thousands of hectares of crops were destroyed. The Koshi is known as the Sorrow of Bihar for contributing disproportionately to India's death tolls in flooding, which exceed those of all countries except Bangladesh.

Fault scarp cuts alluvial fan, Death Valley

Mini alluvial fan, Death Valley

Alluvial Fan in Southern Iran. Image from NASA's Terra satellite

Alluvial fans

Alluvial fans are fan-shaped deposits of water-transported material (alluvium). They typically form at the base of topographic features where there is a marked break in slope. Consequently, alluvial fans tend to be coarse-grained, especially at their mouths. At their edges, however, they can be relatively fine-grained.

Here's another alluvial fan. It's actually two fans that have grown together. Note the numerous channels (light-colored areas)--they mark the locations of the coarsest sediment.
Alluvium (from the Latin, alluvius, from alluere, "to wash against") is loose, unconsolidated (not cemented together into a solid rock) soil or sediments, which has been eroded, reshaped by water in some form, and redeposited in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel. When this loose alluvial material is deposited or cemented into a lithological unit, or lithified, it would be called an alluvial deposit.

Alluvial fans are aggrading deposits of alluvium deposited by a stream issuing from a canyon onto a surface or valley floor. Once in the valley, the stream is unconfined and can migrate back and forth, depositing alluvial sediments across a broad area. View from above, an individual deposit looks like an open fan with the apex being at the valley mouth. Typically the fans formed by multiple canyons along a mountain front join to form a continuous fan apron, termed a piedmont or bajada.

Aerial view of Lucy Gray Fan, an alluvial fan that radiates from a canyon cutting through the Lucy Gray Mountains and drains into the Ivanpah Valley (north of the Mojave National Preserve in Nevada). Below the mouth of the canyon the stream divides into several channels. Active channels (void of vegetation) appear white, whereas, darker areas on the fan are covered with vegetation and possibly a thin veneer of soil. Channels migrate as they become choked with sediment as flood waters seep into the ground. Coarser rock fragments remain high on the fan, whereas finer materials (sand, silt, and clay) will continue to migrate downslope. Only during more intense storms will water reach and pond on the Ivanpah playa. Large areas within the Mojave Desert are pediment surfaces. These pediments reflect both the antiquity of some mountain structures in the region and the persistent arid climatic conditions in the region. Perhaps the most notable pediment in the region is Cima Dome, a very broad, shield-shaped upland area within the Mojave National Preserve (below). This great, gently-sloped upland area represent a region where desert-style weathering and erosion has stripped away most of the relief to the point that the erosion keeps pace with surface weathering and that surface gradient is gentle enough to prevent gully-style downcutting. Isolated rocky hills or knobs that rise abruptly from an erosional surface in desert regions are called inselbergs.