INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EAST AFRICA

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

PETROLOGY
COURSE WORK 2

DONE BY

MUGISHA ARNOLD
13/U/208/BSPE-S
Deltas are landforms that form as rivers empty their water and sediment into another body of
water, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river moves more slowly as it nears its mouth,
or end. This causes sediment, solid material carried downstream by currents, to fall to the river
bottom.
The slowing velocity of the river and the build-up of sediment allows the river to break from its
single channel as it nears its mouth. Under the right conditions, a river forms a deltaic lobe. A
mature deltaic lobe includes a distributary network: a series of smaller, shallower channels,
called distributaries, which branch off from the main stem of the river.
In a deltaic lobe, heavier, coarser material settles first. Smaller, finer sediment is carried further
downstream. The finest material is deposited beyond the river's mouth. This material is
called alluvium or silt. Silt is rich in nutrients that help microbes and plants grow. As silt builds
up, new land is formed. This is the delta. A delta extends a river's mouth into the body of water
into which it is emptying.
A delta is sometimes divided into two parts: subaqueous and subaerial. The subaqueous part of a
delta is underwater. This is the most steeply sloping part of the delta, and contains the finest silt.
The newest part of the subaqueous delta, furthest from the mouth of the river, is called
the prodelta. The subaerial part of a delta is above water. The subaerial region most influenced
by waves and tides is called the lower delta. The region most influenced by the river's flow is
called the upper delta. This nutrient-rich wetland of the upper and lower delta can be an
extension of the river bank, or a series of narrow islands between the river's distributary network.

Anatomy of a Delta:
http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/detailedstory/RiverDelta.html
However, not all rivers form deltas. For a delta to form, the flow of a river must be slow and
steady enough for silt to be deposited and build up. The Ok Tedi, in Papua New Guinea is one of
the fastest-flowing rivers in the world. It does not form a delta as it becomes a tributary of the
Fly River. (The Fly, on the other hand, does form a rich delta as it empties into the Gulf of Papua,
part of the Pacific Ocean.)
A river will also not form a delta if exposed to powerful waves. The Columbia River in Canada
and the United States, for instance, deposits enormous amounts of sediment into the Pacific
Ocean, but strong waves and currents sweep the material away as soon as it is deposited.
Tides also limit where deltas can form. The Amazon, the largest river in the world, is without a
delta. The tides of the Atlantic Ocean are too strong to allow silt to create a delta on the Amazon.

Types of Deltas
Arcuate (fan-shaped) Delta
An Arcuate delta is in the shape of an arc. It looks like an upside-down triangle when viewed
from above. This type of delta has many active, short distributaries taking sediment to their
mouths. The receiving (ambient) waters are rather shallow and have relatively even wave action
arriving perpendicular to the shore with minimal long shore current. As the sediment exits the
many distributary mouths, the waves push it back, so the coastline is rather smooth.
Arcuate deltas form where coarser materials such as gravel are deposited. The River Nile delta in
Egypt and the Niger delta in Nigeria provide examples of an arcuate delta.

Nile Delta in Egypt: Image credit www.Wikispaces.com

Birds Foot Delta

Birds foot deltas form where the sea waves are weak in comparison to the strength of the river.
The deposition of fine sediments extends out beyond the coastline. The channels of the river
divide up into very few distributaries and look like birds feet. It consists of very fine material
like silt and the distributaries are bordered by levees jutting out from the shore. An example of
the Birds foot delta is the Mississippi Delta.

Satellite view of the Mississippi River Delta. Image credit www.adammandalmen.com

Cuspate Delta
A Cuspate delta usually has one distributary emptying into a flat coastline with wave action
hitting it head-on. This tends to push the sediment back on both sides of the mouth, with a
"tooth" growing out onto the shelf. These develop where there is limited distributary
development in coasts that have moderate current. An example is the Tiber river Delta.

Tiber River Delta;

http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/detailedstory/RiverDelta.html
Estuarine Delta
An estuarine delta is made up of a single channel with braids formed from deposits made onto
the rivers channel as it reaches the ocean.
The estuarine delta is formed from material deposited in the submerged mouth of a river. An
example is the Zambezi river delta in Mozambique.

Figure Zambezi river delta.

Lacustrine Deltas
These are deltas which form at the mouth of a river as it flows into a lake. They from when the
river loses speed and its energy to transport, leading to the deposition of sediment. When
deposits build up and become visible above the water, it forms a lacustrine delta. Lacustrine
deltas are mainly composed of alluvium. Each layer is composed of beds; the bottom set bed, the
foreset bed and the topset bed.

References
http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/detailedstory/RiverDelta.html
Tide dominated delta. 2017. http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?pageid=313 (accessed April
10, 2017).
Wave Dominated Deltas. 2017. http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?pageid=314 (accessed
April 2017).
wikipedia. wikipedia.org/wiki/River_delta. March 30, 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_delta (accessed april 10, 2017).