Katana VentraIP

Stream capture

Stream capture, river capture, river piracy or stream piracy is a geomorphological phenomenon occurring when a stream or river drainage system or watershed is diverted from its own bed, and flows instead down the bed of a neighbouring stream. This can happen for several reasons, including:

The additional water flowing down the capturing stream may accelerate erosion and encourage the development of a canyon (gorge).


The now-dry valley of the original stream is known as a wind gap.

: About 25,000 years ago, an uplift of the plains near Moama on the Cadell Fault first dammed the Murray River and then forced it to take a new course. The new course dug its way through the so-called Barmah Choke and captured the lower course of the Goulburn River for 500 km (310 mi).

Barmah Choke

-Sutlej-Sarasvati-Yamuna: The Yamuna earlier flowed into the Ghaggar-Hakra River (identified with the Sarasvati River) and later changed its course due to plate tectonics. The Sutlej River flowed into the current channel of the Ghaggar-Hakra River until the 13th century after which it was captured by the Indus River due to plate tectonics.[1]

Indus

(Dawson–Fitzroy river system, central Queensland).

Golden perch

(several rivers, northern New South Wales). However, note recent genetic research which now indicates eel-tailed catfish colonised east coast drainages in multiple colonisation events relatively recently (by evolutionary standards) and may subsequently have colonised the Murray–Darling system via an east-to-west river capture event, contrary to usual west-to-east capture events listed here.

Eel-tailed catfish

(Hawkesbury-Nepean rivers, Shoalhaven River, southern New South Wales).

Macquarie perch

(multiple rivers, Victoria).

River blackfish

Murray cod

Eastern freshwater cod

The species complex (multiple rivers, southern Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria).

mountain galaxias

Lake capture

Niger River

Misfit stream