The rebellion from the depths of the Earth 30 million years ago played a decisive role in the birth of ancient Egyptian civilization tens of millions of years later.
A team from Roma Tre University (Italy) and the University of Texas at Austin (USA) have decoded the mysteries surrounding the river that has flowed in an “seemingly impossible” way on African soil – the Nile. , the longest river in the world .
Prior to that, topographic analyzes of the area suggested that it should have flowed eastward, down into the Red Sea. Some other geologists believe it must have flowed westward and merge into the Atlantic Ocean before some mysterious event changed the course of the river.
The Nile River flows through the territory of Uganda – (photo: ROD WADDINGTON).
But new research shows it has been flowing north since its birth. An unusual plate tectonic activity of the Earth created that particular flow and changed the history of Africa forever. That “shudder” occurred 30 million years ago, playing a decisive role in the formation of civilizations on the banks of the Nile tens of millions of years later, the most famous being the ancient Egyptian civilization .
The research began with the “golden” discovery of ancient rocks in the Ethiopian highlands , of volcanic origin. Surprisingly, these rocks are of the same type as the sediments that were brought down the river in ancient times and buried under the Nile Delta today, which is very far from Ethiopia. Using geologic data, they reconstructed the Earth’s 40-million-year geological history with a model.
Geologists study ancient rock fragments along the Nile.
From this model, they identified the appearance of a so-called mantle plume , a massive, hot mass of rock from deep within the Earth capable of creating what is known as a “magma conveyor belt” deep below. Earth’s crust. This “magma conveyor belt” suddenly pushed the land known as the Ethiopian Plateau today higher than the surrounding area.
This “magma carousel” suddenly pushed the land known as the Ethiopian Plateau today.
At the same time, the Earth’s crust as far away as Egypt was gently sinking, creating a slight northward slope. A second lucky point is that after the rebellion created the Ethiopian Highlands, the Earth decided to keep that land intact for tens of millions of years. From this plateau, the Nile was born with the first part called “Blue Nile” . After a northward bend, it merges with the White Nile and descends toward Egypt.
According to geology professor Claudio Faccenna (Roma Tre University), the age of the Nile River revealed through this study alone – 30 million years – is also a surprise, because the rivers on Earth are constantly changing. much faster than that. The authors quip that this new discovery makes the Nile six times more venerable than previously thought.
The study has just been published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.