To my understanding, a river’s source is fueled by snow and rain, but is it enough to keep it running for that long? Afterall the source doesn’t get rain/snow 24/7 so wouldn’t bigger rivers drain the source in a matter of weeks instead of many hundreds of years?
In: Planetary Science
Precipitation (rain, snow, etc) delivers water uphill, and the water runs downhill. Sometimes a big rain delivers water faster, other times lack of rain causes less water to be moved. This corresponds to water levels going up and down over time, as we get more or less water flowing.
Yes, the precipitation carries enough water to keep things moving. Consider that all of the water coming down in all of the square miles of land upstream has to flow out through that stream.
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