What's The Oldest River In The World?

While theNileand theAmazonrivers get a lot of credit for being the longest river and the cosmos ’s largest river by weewee book , respectively , there are still plenty of title to arrogate across the rest of planet Earth ’s mighty waterways .

The old river in the world is the subject of some public debate , but is largely agreed to be theFinke River , which is also known as the Larapinta by endemic communities in Australia . The river flow only a few times a year after dense rainfall and extends around 600 - 750 kilometer ( 372 - 466 miles ) to its outlet at Lake Eyre . reckon to be around 350 to 400 million years older , the Finke river has its origin in the MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory of Australia . Indigenous legend secern the narrative that the river was form when the Rainbow Serpent went north from Lake Eyre .

It is highly hard to work out the exact eld of a river , especially over periods of extensive geological time . Scientists and geologists can see the besiege ecological features , mountain range of mountains , and search at theriverbedsediment , as well as the " meanders " – features of the river grade itself that have exchange the landscape due to hundreds of million eld of erosion . Even after considering all these features and more , it is not unusual to have wide - ranging estimates of historic period that span bombastic time period .

The oldest river in North America is recollect to be the confusingly named New River , which runs some 547 klick ( 340 mile ) from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina into Virginia and West Virginia , where it eventually joins the Kanawha River . Estimates for the age of this river change widely but most evoke it to be between 10 and 360 million old age old . According to astudy , this river was tag the “ 2d oldest river in the world ” during a 1970s publicizing campaign to prevent the river from being dammed .

Across the pond , the Old river in Europe is thought to be the Meuse , which feed 950 kilometers ( 590 miles ) through three countries : Belgium and The Netherlands , from its start point in France . This river is count on to be 320 to 340 million years old .

Our understanding of river constitution is not an exact science , so more scientific evidence could do to light that change the years of these rivers and pour forth more light on their formation millions of years ago .

An early version of this clause was published inMay 2023 .