Ice, tide, river and salt

A tidal range is legible from the gap between a grounded boat and the waterline on a post, and an extreme range only happens where a funnel-shaped bay resonates with the ocean's own rhythm. A notch cut around every limestone tower at the same height is a record of sea level. A braided river is a stream carrying more sediment than it can move.

Where water leaves rather than flows, it leaves its dissolved load behind: polygonal salt tiles in a closed basin with no outlet, limestone rims where a hot spring loses carbon dioxide at the surface, brine concentrated pond by pond until only pigmented microbes survive in it.