With thanks to Adair Farrar

The San Juan River

Goosenecks State Park in Utah, USA, overlooks a deep meander of the San Juan River, a 600-km-long tributary of the Colorado River. One of the best examples of entrenched river meanders in the world, the river flows through 8 kms of canyon while progressing westwards only 1.5 kms.

The gorge, made up of rocks up to 300 million years old, was formed through years of gradual uplift during the formation of the Colorado Plateau, an area mainly made up of desert in the American Southwest. The river’s winding course starting in the San Juan mountains of Colorado eventually leads to Lake Powell, Arizona, the second largest man-made lake in the United States.

Image: flickr | adairfarrar