One of the most important perceptions needed to understand deltas is how their depositional framework changes with time. Because delta characteristics are controlled by factors that are subject to change, it follows that deltaic growth patterns are dynamic and variable.

The most significant effect is that the site of deposition shifts dramatically with time. This occurs because the channel gradient and transporting power of a delta river decreases as the deltaic lobe extends farther seaward and shorter routes to the ocean become available. These shorter pathways may begin far inland, usually being occupied when the river is diverted through breaches in levees called crevasses. This process effectively shifts the locus of deposition and initiates the development of a new deltaic lobe. For example, the Mississippi delta actually consists of the coalescence of seven major lobes constructed at different times and positions during the last 5,000 years. In fact, the modern bird-foot delta of the Mississippi River is only a small part of the entire deltaic system, and there is good reason to believe that another major shift in the depositional position is imminent. The Atchafalaya River, a major distributary, branches from the Mississippi upstream from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and its route to the ocean is approximately 300 kilometres shorter than the present course of the Mississippi. This channel carries 30 percent of the Mississippi flow, and sediment reaching Atchafalaya Bay (160 kilometres west of New Orleans) is actively building a new delta lobe. Complete diversion of the Mississippi discharge into the Atchafalaya will accelerate growth of the new delta. The present bird-foot delta will be abandoned and, starved of any incoming sediment, will become severely eroded by the unopposed attack of marine processes.

Even within a modern delta, water and sediment, funneled through crevasses, build smaller subdeltas, which are ephemeral in space and time. What emerges is a picture of a dynamic system in which depositional sites change over different timescales. On a short-term basis (years to decades), a limited area (subdelta) may receive sediment, but the position of accumulation shifts rapidly. On a longer timescale (hundreds to thousands of years), the position of an entire active delta may migrate over a considerable distance.

Origin and classification

Most modern estuaries formed as the result of a worldwide rise in sea level, which began approximately 18,000 years ago during the waning phase of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. When glaciation was at its maximum, sea level was significantly lower than it is today because much of the precipitation falling on the continents was locked up in massive ice bodies rather than returning to the ocean. In response, rivers entrenched their downstream reaches as baselevel (sea level) declined. As the ice began to dissipate, sea level rose, and marine waters invaded the entrenched valleys and inundated other portions of the coastal zone, such as deltas and coastal plains. It is known that the subsidence of a coast produces the same effect as a rise in sea level; thus, tectonic activity sometimes creates estuaries.

In general, estuaries develop in one of three ways. First, estuaries represent drowned valleys. The valleys may have been formed by normal river entrenchment (e.g., Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States) or as the result of glacial erosion. The latter type, called fjords, are deep, narrow gorges cut into bedrock by tongues of glacial ice advancing down a former stream valley (see glacial landform). Fjords are most common in Norway and the coastal margins of British Columbia, Canada. Both valley types (river and glacial) became estuarine environments with the postglacial rise in sea level. Second, some estuaries develop when barrier islands and/or spits enclose large areas of brackish water between the open ocean and the continental margin. These depositional features restrict free exchange between river and marine water and create lagoons or partially enclosed bays that develop the chemical characteristics of an estuarine environment. Such settings are best exemplified in the Gulf Coast region of the United States (e.g., Galveston Bay), the Vadehavet tidal area of Denmark, the Swan estuary of Western Australia, and the Waddenzee of the Netherlands. Third, some estuaries are clearly submerged in response to tectonic activity, such as down-faulted coastal zones or isostatically controlled subsidence (e.g., San Francisco Bay).

Physical oceanographers commonly classify valley-type estuaries by the process and extent of mixing between fresh water and seawater. A salt-wedge estuary is dominated by river discharge, and tidal effects are negligible. In this situation, fresh water floats on top of seawater as a distinct layer, which thins toward the ocean. A wedge-shaped body of seawater underlies the freshwater layer and thins toward the continent. The interface between the two water types is well defined, and very little mass transfer or mixing of the two waters occurs. Partially mixed estuaries are characterized by an increased tidal effect to a condition where river discharge does not dominate the system. Mixing of the two water types is prominent in this system and is caused by increased turbulence. Mass transfer of water involves movement in both directions across a boundary that becomes less distinct than the one found in the salt-wedge estuaries. In vertically homogeneous estuaries, the velocity of tidal currents is large enough to produce total mixing and eliminate the fresh-salt water boundary. The water salinity is constant in the vertical sense and tends to decrease toward the continent. In general, the classification of estuaries by mixing indicates that the more substantial the river discharge, the weaker is the mixing. In addition, the dominance of river flow causes a greater salinity gradient. This indicates that sizable fluvial activity tends to block the entrance of seawater into the estuary environment.

Sedimentation in estuaries

The bedrock floor near the mouth of most estuaries is usually buried by a thick accumulation of sediment. The texture and composition of sediment in estuaries in the United States is known to be a function of river basin geology, bathymetry, and hydrologic setting. Where sediment supply is inadequate to fill drowned valleys, clay and silt are usually deposited in the central part of bays and grade shoreward and seaward into bodies of sand. Where sediment supply and tidal range are both large, such as in Oregon and northern California in the western United States, the clay and silt are commonly swept from the channels and deposited on the marginal flats. In the Gulf Coast region, small tides and abundant fine-grained sediment tend to create very shallow estuaries. Silt and clay are usually deposited in lagoons behind barrier bars, although these grade into sands around the lagoonal margins.

The character and distribution of estuarine sediment are influenced by many physical, chemical, and biologic processes, such as tidal currents, flocculation, bioturbation (the reworking and alteration of sediment by organisms), storms, morphology of the estuary, and human activities. The sediment type that is deposited, therefore, depends on the dynamics of the system, which in turn are controlled by an equilibrium between river and tidal flow. River discharge develops inertia, which results in the collision of river and ocean waters in the estuary itself. Most sediment is derived from the river system, and whether or not it is deposited within the estuary depends on how quickly the velocity is diminished by the effect of tidal currents and by the extent of the tidal range. Notwithstanding the above, it has been long recognized that net sediment transport in many open estuaries can be from the sea toward the land.