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The world's oldest river existed before the dinosaurs

2026-01-26 18:54:00, Kuriozitete CNA

The world's oldest river existed before the dinosaurs

Although it may seem like rivers are a permanent feature of the landscape, in reality their life cycle is relatively short. However, there are exceptions, and one of the most amazing is the Finke River in Australia.

Scientists estimate its age at 300 to 400 million years, which means that this river existed before dinosaurs appeared on Earth and can safely be described as the oldest river in the world.

Estimating the age of the Finke River (known as the Larapinta to indigenous peoples) was a complex process. Scientists combined changes in the course of the surrounding mountains and the bends of the river with analyses of the chemical composition of the riverbed and studies of radioactive isotopes.

The world's oldest river existed before the dinosaurs

Victor Baker, a geomorphologist at the University of Arizona, explains that the main evidence confirming the river's extremely long history is a phenomenon called "inter-axial drainage."

Under normal conditions, rivers do not carve difficult rock formations but choose easier routes along them. But in the case of the Finke River and the MacDonnell Ranges, the river carves directly through the hills, indicating that it was formed before the mountains rose, a process that occurred during the Alice Springs orogeny, between 450 and 350 million years ago.

The world's oldest river existed before the dinosaurs

For most of the year, the Finke River is difficult to spot. The dry and hot climate of the Australian interior gives it a discontinuous character; under unfavorable conditions, it appears as a series of isolated depressions filled with water. However, it never completely disappears and its existence is also supported by specific tectonic conditions: the Australian continent has been very stable for the last 100 million years, without major tectonic movements and without glaciation during the Pleistocene period. Thanks to this, the Finke River system has managed to survive and develop without major interruptions over time. /CNA 





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