List of rivers by age
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This is a list of the oldest rivers on Earth.
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[edit] Definition of age
The age of a river is hard to determine. It depends on which mountains are the source of the river, which mountains it has dissected during the geologic times, and in which sea or ocean it outflows eventually and where it forms its delta.
Each of these factors can make a final contribution in determining the age of a river.
[edit] List of rivers older than 1 Ma
Below follows a list of rivers older than 1 Ma (one million years = 1,000,000 years).
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| River | Age (Ma) | Outflow | Most significant criterium for the age | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Meuse River | 380 | North Sea | Paleozoic, dissects the Ardennes during the Hercynian |
| 2. | Yangtze (Chang Jiang) |
350 | East China Sea | Crosses Paleozoic and Mesozoic mountains[1] |
| 3. | New River (Kanawha River) | 300 | Atlantic Ocean | Dissects the Appalachian Mountains |
| 4. | Nile | 250 | Mediterranean Sea | Mesozoic |
| 5. | Rhine | 240 | North Sea | Triassic, maybe older because of the Hercynian; not the Eocene with the Alps, nor the Miocene with the Upper Rhine Graben |
| 6. | Amazon | 200 | Atlantic Ocean | Jurassic, but it seems to have flown in the opposite direction as an extension of the Congo, i.e. long before the formation of Andes |
| 7. | Colorado (western U.S.) | 75 | Gulf of California | Uplift during Laramide orogeny, see Geology of the Grand Canyon area |
| 8. | Thames | 58 | North Sea | Late Palaeocene Period Thanetian Stage.[2] |
| 9. | Indus (Sindhu) |
45 | Arabian Sea | Source in the Himalayas and Karakoram Mountains [3] |
[edit] References
- ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica: Yangtze River http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9110538/Yangtze-River
- ^ "History of the major rivers of southern Britain during the Tertiary". Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Group. 2006. http://www.qpg.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/tertiaryrivers/. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
- ^ Clift, Peter D.; Shimizu, N.; Layne, G.D.; Blusztajn, J.S.; Gaedicke, C.; Schlüter, H.-U.; Clark, M.K.; and Amjad, S. (August 2001). "Development of the Indus Fan and its significance for the erosional history of the Western Himalaya and Karakoram". GSA Bulletin 113 (8): 1039–1051. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(2001)113<1039:DOTIFA>2.0.CO;2.
