Evolution of the River Nile

Reblogging from Steve Drury at wileyearthpages. In an earlier post (How to learn from creationists), I mentioned the case of the buried Nile canyon as one where I had learnt from answering creationists’ questions. This piece gives much more detailed interesting information, and I am surprised (not for the first time) to learn how young great river systems are in their present form.

The longest river in the world, the Nile has all sorts of riveting connotations in terms of archaeology, Africa’s colonial history, the romance of early exploration and is currently the focus of disputes about rights to its waters. The last stems from its vast potential for irrigation and for hydropower. It is probably the most complex of all the major rivers of our planet because it stretches across so many climatic zones, topographic systems geological and tectonic provinces. Mohamed Abdelsalam of Oklahoma State University, who was born in the Sudan and began his career at the confluence of the White and Blue Nile in its capital Khartoum, is an ideal person to produce a modern scientific summary of how the Nile has evolved. That is because he has studied some of the key elements of the geology through which the river and its major tributaries travel, but most of all…

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