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How do rivers form?
Rain falls in the hills and sinks into the ground. When the rocks and soil cannot hold any more water, the water bubbles to the surface in a spring and runs off downhill, eroding a gorge as it goes. In lower-lying land it runs more slowly, and although it is still eroding the sides of the valleys, it is also depositing the material that it has eroded upstream. Eventually the river becomes so slow that it cannot carry any more debris, and it deposits the sediment in a flood plain, before reaching the sea.
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