Pothole (landform)

In Earth science, a pothole is a smooth, bowl-shaped or cylindrical hollow, generally deeper than wide, found carved into the rocky bed of a watercourse. Other names used for riverine potholes are pot, (stream) kettle, giant's kettle, evorsion, hollow, rock mill, churn hole, eddy mill, and kolk.^[1] Although somewhat related to a pothole in origin, a plunge pool (or plunge basin or waterfall lake) is the deep depression in a stream bed at the base of a waterfall. It is created by the erosional forces of turbulence generated by water falling on rocks at a waterfall's base where the water impacts.^[2] Potholes are also sometimes referred to as swirlholes. This word was created to avoid confusion with an English term for a vertical or steeply inclined karstic shaft in limestone. However, given widespread usage of this term for a type of fluvial sculpted bedrock landform, pothole is preferred in usage to swirlhole.^[3]

The term pothole is also used to refer to other types of depressions and basins that differ in origin.^[1] For example, some authors^[4][5] refer to panholes found in the Colorado Plateau also as potholes. Other terms used for panholes are gnamma (Australia), Opferkessel (German; “sacrificial cauldron”), armchair hollows, weathering pans (or pits) and solution pans or solution pits.^[6] In another case, the term pothole is used to refer to a shallow depression, generally less than 10-acre (4.0 ha) in area that occurs between dunes or on subdued morainic relief on a prairie, as in Minnesota and the Dakotas, and often contains an intermittent pond or marsh that serves as a nesting place for waterfowl.^[1]