1 Hamartia: Many people who discuss tragedy often mention the hero's 'fatal' or 'tragic flaw.' However, Aristotle would never accuse a hero of such a personal defect. 2  Instead, he asserted that they were guilty of hamartia, or missing the mark.
Floodplains are landscapes shaped by running water. As streams and their larger forms, rivers, flow across the surface of land, they transport eroded rock and other material. (Erosion is the gradual wearing away of Earth surfaces through the action of wind and water.)
Over thousands of years, the sediments build up floodplains. Alluvial plains often form where steep mountain valley rivers gush onto more level lands, forcing the rush of heavy waters to spill over their banks and drape their sediments out like a fan. Out on the wide-open valley floors, rivers twist and turn on a constant search for passage to the sea.