Overview
- The peer‑reviewed paper published in Nature Geoscience on Monday reconstructs the Euphrates' origin using seismic imaging, satellite mapping, geological surveys and sediment records from the eastern Mediterranean.
- Authors identify two former river systems — the Paleo‑Murat (established more than 16.5 million years ago) and the Paleo‑Karasu (dating between about 8.6 and 5.9 million years ago) — that once drained toward the Mediterranean.
- The study links the dramatic incision and possible mega‑floods to the Messinian Salinity Crisis around 5.3 million years ago, when falling Mediterranean levels forced rivers to cut deeper channels and deposit large sediment fans offshore.
- Tectonic movement on Anatolian faults gradually rerouted drainage toward the southeast by roughly 3.6 million years, and by about 1.6 million years the two proto‑rivers had merged to create the modern Euphrates.
- The reconstruction grew from industry seismic signals first flagged in 2014 by a Chevron geologist and offers new data for understanding regional paleoclimate, the formation of the Fertile Crescent, and the landscapes that shaped early Mesopotamian societies.