Physical Setting

Area Occupied: 12.8 acres (5.2 hectares)

This is the entire area mapped as the Herbaceous Depositional Bar Complex.

Stand Size:

Small scattered narrow patches

Landscape Position:

In or along the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers—on sandbars, sandy riverbanks, or deposits of sand on bedrock floodplains or boulder bars

Soils:

Sandy, fertile, neutral to mildly basic in pH

Geology:

Sediments deposited by the river

The physical environment of the Scour Bar Wet Meadow is ever-changing because it exists within and along the shores of the Potomac and the Shenandoah. The community can be covered with water during even mild or moderate floods, when a significant amount of sediment can be deposited or eroded. (Ecobit: Erosion and Sediment Transport—Earth in Motion)

The type of bedrock does not influence this community as much as the influx of river-deposited sediment, which brings in nutrients and a wide variety of minerals from upstream.