braided stream

Scientific  

/ brā′dĭd /

1. A stream consisting of multiple small, shallow channels that divide and recombine numerous times forming a pattern resembling the strands of a braid. Braided streams form where the sediment load is so heavy that some of the sediments are deposited as shifting islands or bars between the channels.

---

Example Sentences

Noting that “race science requires evidence from the past to elevate race as a biological concept,” she urged anthropologists to depict gene flow over time in ways that don’t emphasize branches as endpoints—perhaps, instead, as a braided stream with channels intersecting at some times, diverging at others.

From Science Magazine

When daylight finally broke Sunday, after two straight days of heavy rain, the road itself looked like a braided stream.

From Seattle Times

Today, human evolution looks less like Darwin's tree and more like a muddy, braided stream.

From Salon

Berger himself thinks the right metaphor for human evolution, instead of a tree branching from a single root, is a braided stream: a river that divides into channels, only to merge again downstream.

From National Geographic

On swiftly paced tracks such as June the 15, 1967, their rapid notes become a braided stream of bright sound.

From Time Magazine Archive