Study Traces How the Euphrates Took Shape and Helped Ancient Civilizations
A new study in Nature Geoscience says the Euphrates River formed between 3.6 million and 1.6 million years ago, when two ancient river systems merged as tectonic activity redirected them away from the Mediterranean Sea toward the Arabian Plate. The river, which together with the Tigris became one of West Asia’s most historically important waterways, helped create a fertile oasis in an otherwise arid region that later supported civilizations including the Sumerians and Assyrians about 6,000 years ago.
Researchers say the Euphrates, the longest river in southwest Asia, runs for about 2,800 kilometers, beginning in Turkey, crossing Syria and Iraq, and emptying into the Persian Gulf. Its role in human history includes feeding Uruk, described in the article as the world’s first metropolis and the birthplace of writing, as well as Babylon, the largest city in ancient Mesopotamia. The scientists said understanding the river’s origins matters because it helps explain major steps in human development, including agriculture, writing, and urban growth on its floodplains.
The team identified buried channel-like formations from around 5.4 million years ago using seismic data gathered while searching for possible gas reserves beneath the eastern Mediterranean. They concluded that two separate rivers, ancestors of today’s Karasu and Murat in Turkey, once flowed across what is now Turkey and Syria into the Mediterranean basin, which at that time was a vast salt desert after the Messinian event. They believe tectonic forces in an earthquake-prone region later pushed the paleo-Murat toward the Persian Gulf about 3.6 million years ago, and the paleo-Karasu joined it roughly 2.8 million years ago.
By about 1.6 million years ago, that merged network had become the modern Euphrates, according to Dr. Andrew Madof of Chevron in Houston. He said, “These diversions ultimately created a single river network that evolved into today’s Euphrates.” Prof. Simon Lang of the University of Western Australia said seismic imaging, which he compared to ultrasound, allowed researchers to “photograph” buried gravel, sand, mud, limestone and salt now turned to rock. He added that the ancient rivers carried more water than today’s Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, and notes that the modern Euphrates and Tigris meet near Basra to form a huge delta at the head of the Persian Gulf. The article also points to the Amazon as another river reshaped by geology, after the rise of the Andes reversed its flow over millions of years.
