CORIOLIS ROTATION OF A SINGLE MEANDER: VIRGIN RIVER, AT SKY MT. GOLF COURSE

MEANDERING DAYS

OH, take me down to the ol’ OXBOW-
That’s where I want to go.
My true love’s waiting there for me,
Observing life’s ebb and flow.

There is the river- fresh and clear-
Removed from the debris of Man;
I can see the starkness near,
Just where the river ran.

Grit comes in and grit flows out,
Down from the winnowed sands;
Returning the former state of things-
Back to the great ORB’S hands.

Harold L. Overton

I received one well-thought-out response:

Errant thoughts by Glenn Wasson

I don’t suppose there’s nothing grander
Than to analyze a streams’ meander;
Those curvaceous shapes from Coriolis
Excite our lust- what could control us?

They explain the Earth’s diastrophism
And almost every other Cataclysm.
I regret so much what I have missed,
By not studying to be a geologist.

Rider of the Purple Page

TOUCHE!


Above is shown a digital photo of the large meander north of the Sky Mountain Golf course at Hurricane, UT. The meander is near a junction of the Virgin River and a local tributary- Gould's Wash. The wash derives from the plateau on the Colorado Plateau, CP, above the Hurricane Fault, some 20 km length of drainage, and partially circles about a crater to the south- Sullivan's Knoll. The intent of this analysis is to determine whether there is a TRIPLE JUNCTION, INFLUENCING THE LOCATION OF THE MEANDER AND ITS POSSIBLE ROTATION.
MY ANALYSIS IS SHOWN BELOW, FINDING THAT THE MEANDER IS A REACTIONARY CELL (TO THE PRIMARY ROTATION AND UPLIFT OF A CELL IMMEDIATELY TO THE NORTH OF GOULD'S WASH). This yields a tentative solution to a vexing observation: MOST SINKS ARE ROUND IN SHAPE, INDICATING THAT CORIOLIS FORCE INFLUENCES THEIR POSITION AND ROTATION- WHICH SEEMS UNREASONABLE! We will examine other sinks to determine if this is a general result.
HERE'S SHOW GOULD'S WASH APPEARS FROM THE TOP (ROTATING TO SEE THE CIRCULAR ORIENTATION):

Righting the right angle photo:
INCORPORATING SINKS FROM OTHER REGIONS AND DYNAMICS,
The Atchafalaya Basin is shown above and below, with my analysis- which is a known sinking area near the Mississippi River, generally thought to be reacting to the compaction of soft sediments brought by sluggish streams- such as the river in its center:
Coriolis cells are of two varieties, so far:
1. Circular, which is the dominant type, and
2. Elliptical, a rarer type, but one which is usually associated with large regions between larger entities.
There may be more rare types, which we will incorporate after analyzing their characteristics. All cells investigated so far obey straightforward RULES:
A. Sinks occur on one side of a rotating cell, with concomitant uplift on the opposite side;
B. Sinking was discovered for a cooling (and shrinking) volcano, a quarter mile from my back yard, and it results in clockwise, CW rotation;
C. Uplift occurs for known rising features, such as SALT DOMES, and it demonstrates CCW rotation;
D. The southern hemisphere has all rotations reversed, but the associations are similar;
E. Except for Reactionary cells, RC, there are centerlines in the middle of the cells- usually in the form of linear faults, unconformities, parallel fractures, or other anomalous features;
F. RC are cells rotated and dragged by oppositely-moving thrusts, transforms, or lateral faulting;
G. Coriolis cells dominate the STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY of the Crust between 40n and 40S latitudes, with minor influence between 10N and 10S (close to the Equator, where there is slight difference in surface latitudinal velocity (referenced to North Pole); and,
H. Coriolis cells are influenced by the independent shear created at the termination of Equatorial Bulge, EB, where the slower-moving non-Bulge region relatively moves eastward. Notice how the creek circulation atop the DOME is influenced by her rotation as it rises, shown above:
Examples for C. include Salt Domes I have personally investigated (inside the caverns for two domes):


TO BE CONTINUED, AFTER RE-HIKING INTO THE MEANDER AND VIRGIN CANYONS NEAR THE GOULD'S WASH INTERSECTION.