Can you guess what this is?

It reminds me of a really cool acrylic pour. But it is not. What do you think it is?

I can’t take credit as the first person who posted this. I discovered it when Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Love Pray  and many other great books, posted a while ago on Instagram.

When I saw her post my first thought was that it is an acrylic pour. But it is not, it is a meandering river map, specifically of, Ol’ Man River, the Mississippi River.  This map was created in 1944 by a cartographer named Harold Fisk. The different colors represent when the river jumped her banks and changed her course. Levees now prevent the river from jumping it’s banks as often.  There is much info about this on the web, but one source in particular is NASA.

Thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert for posting this originally.