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Online
Christopher Alfonso
Understanding the more than 30 Myr history of the Nile River can provide great insight into the evolution of one of the world’s largest river systems and the major hydrocarbon reserves of the Nile Delta. This work builds on previous studies which explored the relationship between the river’s course and the dynamic topography of Northeast Africa by considering additional possible influences on the Nile’s evolution such as climate change and tectonics. These factors are incorporated into a numerical landscape evolution and stratigraphic modelling framework which makes use of the Badlands software package (https://badlands.readthedocs.io) to test the effects of multiple different scenarios for each factor. The analysis of model results involves one of the first applications of the techniques of sequence stratigraphy to a realistic numerical model. These results show that while dynamic topography, along with climate change, likely played a significant role in the Nile’s history, tectonic events – including the formation of the Red Sea Hills and uplift and volcanism of the Ethiopian Plateau – appear to have had the strongest influence on the river’s evolution.
Past webinars can be found on the ASEG Youtube channel.
Contact secretary@aseg.org.au if you have any questions.
