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Valley of Carey Burn

Location 1 on a geological field excursion.

Three alluvial terraces on the north side of the Carey Burn. They appear as elongated terraces that commonly flank the sides of floodplains and fluvial valleys all over the world. They consist of a relatively level strip of land, called a 'tread', separated from either an adjacent floodplain, other fluvial terraces, or uplands by distinctly steeper strips of land called 'risers'. These terraces lie parallel to, and above, the river channel and its floodplain. Because of the manner in which they form, fluvial terraces are underlain by fluvial sediments of highly variable thickness. Fluvial terraces are the remnants of earlier floodplains that existed at a time when either a stream or river was flowing at a higher elevation before its channel downcut to create a new floodplain at a lower elevation.
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