The Coriolis force deflects moving objects to the right in the Northern Hemisphere. Weather systems, ocean currents, and artillery trajectories all account for it. Rivers mostly don't — the conventional view is that river flows are too slow and too confined by their banks for Earth's rotation to matter.
Liu and Liu (arXiv:2603.16912) argue otherwise for the Yellow River. The Coriolis force pushes water rightward (southward, given the river's eastward flow at Lanzhou). In a sediment-poor river, this pressure erodes the right bank. In a sediment-rich river like the Yellow River — which carries more suspended sediment than almost any river on Earth — the rightward push also moves sediment to the right bank, where it deposits.
The competing effects depend on sediment load. Low load: erosion dominates on the right bank. High load: deposition dominates. The Yellow River at Lanzhou has extreme sediment load, and the observed pattern — sand and pebble accumulation on the southern (right) bank — matches the deposition-dominated regime.
This is a small effect. The Coriolis acceleration at the Yellow River's latitude is roughly 10⁻⁵ times gravitational acceleration. Over the river's width, it produces a negligible water surface tilt. But sediment transport is nonlinearly sensitive to shear stress, and a small persistent asymmetry in flow applied over decades of sediment accumulation can produce visible morphological features. The force is weak. The time is long. The river is patient enough for Earth's rotation to shape its banks.