Leonardo da Vinci and fluvial geomorphology.

Abstract

Leonardo-da-Vinci's observations on river flow, floods, accelerated erosion, and sedimentation include some of the earliest examples of observational and experimental, rather than purely theoretical, science. He describes and classified the braided,meandering, and straight courses of rivers and sought explanations of adjustments in river channel-morphology, including the development of scour-hollows. Leonardo was a uniformitarianist, not a diluvialist, and supported the theory of slow uplift proposed by Albert of Saxony and others. He was thus unable to attribute elevated bands of marine fossils to the action of a universal Deluge, but using hypotheses of marine transgression and regression, he was able to construct a rudimentary denudation-chronology for parts of Tuscany. -Author