River terraces (tectonic–climatic interaction)

Imagine you have a big pile of sand on a flat surface. If you took a hose and turned it on, water would run down the pile of sand and create little channels, like rivers. The water would eventually start to erode the sand, making the channels wider and deeper.

Now imagine that instead of a flat surface, the pile of sand is on a slope. The water running down the pile would still create channels, but because of the slope, it would be harder for the water to erode the sand. As the water continues to flow down the slope, it could start to create different levels of channels at different heights on the slope.

This is similar to what happens in real life with rivers and their surrounding land, which is called the river terrace. The river creates channels on the land as it flows, and over time, these channels can deepen and widen. But sometimes, tectonic (relating to the movement of Earth's plates) and climatic (relating to the weather) factors can cause the land around the river to rise or fall.

If the land rises, the river's channels will be higher up than before and create a new level on the slope, called a river terrace. If the land falls, the river's channels will be lower than before, creating a lower level terrace. This can happen multiple times over millions of years, creating a staircase-like formation of river terraces at different heights on the slope.

So, river terraces are created when a river erodes channels on a sloping landscape over time, and the tectonic and climatic factors cause changes in the land's elevation, which leads to multiple levels of river channels being created at different heights on the slope.