The treads of river terraces are formed by processes analogous to those that produce floodplains. In depositional terraces, however, the origin of the now abandoned floodplain is much less significant than the long-term episode of valley filling that preceded the final embellishment of the tread. The thickness of valley-fill deposits is much greater than anything that could be produced by vertical accretion on a floodplain surface. In fact, most of the valley fill is composed of channel deposits rather than floodplain deposits. Thus, the sediment beneath a depositional terrace reflects a continuously rising valley floor. The tread represents the highest level attained by the valley floor as it rose during this episode of aggradation, and the upper skim of the deposit is that affected by processes of floodplain origin. What caused the extended period of valley filling is thus the important aspect of depositional terraces rather than the processes that developed the final character of the tread.

Valley filling that creates the underpinning of a depositional terrace occurs when the amount of sediment produced in a basin over an extended period of time is greater than the amount that the river system can remove from the basin. Usually this phenomenon is produced by climate change, influx of glacial outwash, uplift in source areas, or rises in baselevel that trigger deposition in the lower portions of the basin. Development of the actual terrace requires an interval subsequent to valley filling during which the river entrenches into the fill. Many of the same factors that trigger valley filling are those which, oppositely impressed, initiate the episode of entrenchment.

The relationship between glaciation and depositional terraces constitutes the cornerstone of reconstructing geomorphic history in valleys that have been glaciated. The balance between load and discharge that ultimately determines whether a river will deposit or erode is severely altered during glacial episodes. An enormous volume of coarse-grained bed load is carried by an active glacier and released at the glacial margin. This influx of sediment simply overwhelms the downstream fluvial system, even though meltwater produced near the ice margin provides greater than normal transporting power to a river emerging from the glacier. As a result, valley reaches downstream from the ice margin begin to fill with coarse debris (outwash), which cannot be transported on the channel gradient that existed prior to the glacial event. Deposition ensues, and the valley aggrades until the gradient, load, and discharge conditions are modified enough to allow transport of the entire load or to initiate river entrenchment into the fill.

Valley fills composed of outwash and the depositional terraces that result from later entrenchment are closely associated with moraines (ridges composed of rock debris deposited directly by ice) developed simultaneously at the ice margin. Characteristically the gradient on the terrace surface increases drastically near the moraine, and outwash beneath the terrace tread thickens significantly and becomes notably more coarse-grained. The terrace and its associated alluvium end at the moraine, being totally absent up the valley from the morainal position. This allows the location of an ice margin to be determined as the upstream extremity of an outwash terrace even if the associated moraine has been removed by subsequent erosion.

In unglaciated river systems, valley fills are most commonly associated with climatic changes, tectonics, or rising sea levels. Climatically produced valley aggradation is controlled by very complex interrelationships between precipitation, vegetation, and the amount of sediment yielded from basin slopes. Every climatic regime has a particular combination of precipitation and vegetation type and density that will produce a maximum value of sediment yield. The effect of a particular climate change can increase or decrease sediment yield in a basin, depending on what conditions existed prior to the climate change with respect to the values that would produce the maximum yield.

In contrast to depositional terraces, erosional terraces are specifically related to the processes of floodplain development. Erosional terraces are those in which lateral river migration and lateral accretion are the dominant processes in constructing the floodplain surface that subsequently becomes the terrace tread. Most of the terrace surface is underlain by point bar deposits. These deposits are usually thin and maintain a constant thickness of sediment that rests on a flat surface eroded across the underlying bedrock or unconsolidated debris. The thickness of the point bar deposits is controlled by the depth to which the formative river was able to scour during the formation of the floodplain. Any thickness greater than the depth of scour indicates that deposits underlying the tread represent a valley fill (depositional terrace) rather than an erosional terrace. Rock-cut terraces were first and best described in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming, although some of the terraces in that area may be depositional in origin.

Terraces and geomorphic history

The use of terraces to determine regional geomorphic history requires careful field study involving correlation of surfaces within a valley or between valleys. The process is not easy, because each terrace sequence must be examined according to its own climatic, tectonic, and geologic setting. Terraces that have been dissected into segments often have only isolated remnants of the original surface. These remnants are commonly separated by considerable distances, often many kilometres. Reconstruction of the original terrace surface requires that the isolated remnants be correctly correlated along the length of the valley, and every method used in this procedure has fundamental assumptions that may or may not be valid. Furthermore, errors in physical correlation of surfaces lead to faulty interpretation of valley history. This problem is exacerbated because fluvial mechanics may be out of phase in different parts of a valley or from one valley to its adjacent neighbour. For example, pronounced filling by outwash deposition (discussed above) may be occurring in the upper reaches of a major valley such as the Mississippi during the maximum of a glacial stage. At the same time, however, near the Gulf of Mexico, the lower reaches of the Mississippi River would be actively entrenching because baselevel (sea level) is drastically lowered during glacial periods when storage of ice on the continents upsets the balance in the hydrologic cycle. Deposition and entrenchment involved in terrace formation is clearly not synchronous along the entire length of such a river system.

In addition, it is now known that more than one terrace can result during a period of entrenchment. This indicates that the downcutting that presumably results during a change in climate or some other controlling factor may not be a continuous unidirectional event. Instead, the response to that change is complex. It often involves pauses in vertical entrenchment during which the river may form erosional terraces by lateral planation or depositional terraces by short intervals of valley alluviation. The complicating factor with regard to valley history is that multiple terraces may be formed during an adjustment to one equilibrium-disrupting change in factors that control fluvial mechanics.