Many of them leave their meandering mark on the landscape before finally drying out. However, some rivers have been around longer than others. So which river is the oldest in the world today?
Victor Baker, a geomorphologist from the University of Arizona, told Live Science that the winner turned out to be older than the dinosaurs, and this is the Finke River in Australia, or Larapinte in the language of the Arrernte aborigines. It is between 300 and 400 million years old.
The network of streams and channels stretches for more than 640 kilometers across the Northern Territory and South Australia. Due to the arid conditions in the center of the continent, the river dries up, and for most of the year it is a chain of isolated reservoirs. However, a combination of geological data, weathering profiles, and measurements of radionuclide content in the surrounding sediments and rocks allowed scientists to attribute this river system to the Devonian (from 419 to 359 million years ago) or Carboniferous (from 359 to 299 million years ago) period.
One of the most convincing proofs of its antiquity is a geological anomaly called transverse axial drainage. Instead of flowing parallel to stable rocks such as quartzite, the Finke River crosses these durable mineral formations, passing through the McDonnell Range in central Australia.
Flowing water always chooses the easiest path, so it seems illogical that the river flows against these solid rocks rather than along them. Consequently, the presence and origin of this transverse drainage channel allow us to learn important details about the historical course of the Finke. In fact, the river existed before the mountains formed, and as the earth's crust rose, the river deepened.
The McDonnell Ridge (or Tioritja in the Arrernte language) was formed as a result of orogeny in the Alice Springs area, a tectonic process of mountain formation that occurred from 300 to 400 million years ago. Thus, the Finca is at least as old as these mountains.
As for the future, it is difficult to say how long Finke will exist. Many rivers in arid regions have changed dramatically due to human consumption of water.
If the Finca ever dries up, the New River, which is about 300 million years old today, will be in second place. It flows through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. vokrugsveta.ru.
