Quantifying the way rivers bends may identify the origin of channels on other planets.

Whether it’s a river that blocks the earth, a lava that melts rocks, or water that slices ice, it twists and bends in a similar, reciprocating way. However, a new study led by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin found that the channels carved into the river had curves that were actually cut with lava and ice.

The exact mechanisms driving these curve shapes are not certain, but researchers have cited several previous models that refer to the relationship between the channel’s topography and the flow of fluid within it.

In the river, centrifugal forces push the water, moving faster along the outer edge of the channel’s bend, and running slowly along the inner edge. As a result, the water erodes the outer edge and deposits sediment along the inner edge, amplifying the river bends.

Meanwhile, volcanic and ice channels are thermally erosed by melting. Also, because no sediment is deposited like rivers, the only changes that occur in these channels are relatively small along the outer edge of the curve than the river curve.

“This distinction sets up a large natural experiment to see if the shape or size of a river bend is different from the shape of a volcanic or ice channel,” said Tim Goudge, co-author of the paper and professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Faculty of Earth Sciences.

These findings could be used as diagnostic tools for wavy channels in other worlds. There, the origin of the fluid is unknown and scientists cannot be on the ground to measure and take samples.

This study is published in Geology.

Juan Vasquez, who earned his bachelor’s degree from Jackson School in 2024, led his research while working with Goode. He analyzed thousands of bends and moon volcanic waterways in rivers and ice channels on Earth. Vazquez said that what he initially thought was an analysis error was an early indication that the river bends had an extreme size than the other channels.

“Until the parameters of the code we set up in the volcanic channels of the moon continued to fail because of the rivers on Earth we realized.” That’s not the code’s fault. It’s essentially a different amplitude,” Vazquez said.

In their analysis, the researchers also found that heat-eroding volcanoes and ice channels had a higher percentage of highlighted bends downstream compared to rivers.

On Earth, there are several ways to determine the origin of a channel, such as observing fluids and keeping geological fingerprints in mind. In planetary bodies like the Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, it is a more tricky movement. There, liquid ethane and methane channels cut water ice, but scientists can’t say from orbit whether they meander from orbit due to the transport and deposition of sediment, whether they are deposited like rivers, or whether they are eroding by dissolution or dissolution. Similar debate is also presenting the origins of Mars waterways, where rivers and active volcanoes flowed hundreds of millions of years ago.

“There are these supple waterways on the sides of Mars’ volcanoes. Some interpret them as volcanic waterways, some interpreting them as rivers that formed when snow melted above the volcano,” Goodge said. “The volcanic channel bends are so clear that they say you can measure and find these channels.”

However, Goudge warned against the difficult and rapid use of this research. Looking at it individually, all types of channels can change dramatically, so Goudge said he wanted to catalog and analyze more channels before applying it widely as a diagnostic tool.

“But if we understand that more, I think it’s possible,” he said.

Mariel Nelson, a doctoral student at Jackson School, also contributed to the study and co-authored the paper.