Fluvial vs. Alluvial: What’s the Difference?

• Fluvial

  In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluvioglacial is used.

• Alluvial

  Alluvium (from the Latin alluvius, from alluere, “to wash against”) is loose, unconsolidated (not cemented together into a solid rock) soil or sediments, which has been eroded, reshaped by water in some form, and redeposited in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel. When this loose alluvial material is deposited or cemented into a lithological unit, or lithified, it is called an alluvial deposit.

• Fluvial (adjective)

  Of, pertaining to, inhabiting, or produced by the action of a river or stream

• Alluvial (adjective)

  Pertaining to the soil deposited by a stream.

• Alluvial (noun)

  A deposition of sediment over a long period of time by a river; an alluvial layer.

• Alluvial (noun)

  Alluvial soil; specifically, in Australia, gold-bearing alluvial soil.

• Fluvial (adjective)

  of or found in a river

  “fluvial processes”

  “fluvial deposits”

• Alluvial (adjective)

  relating to or derived from alluvium

  “rich alluvial soils”

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