Did the Nile River flow to the Gulf of Sirt during the late Miocene?

Luigi Carmignani, Riccardo Salvini & Filippo Bonciani(*)
(*) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Siena, Via Laterina, 8 - 53100 Siena; e Centro di GeoTecnologie, Università di Siena, Via dei Vetri Vecchi, 34 - 52027 San Giovanni Valdarno (AR).

Satellite imageries from Landsat ETM+ and ERS (European Remote Sensing) Radar sensors, together with elevation data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in addition to recent and older bibliography, have led to the hypothesis that, before the Late Messinian drawdown of the Mediterranean Sea, the River Nile flowed into the Libyan palaeo-Sirt. The study is still in progress; in this paper data are presented from three areas, showing evidence of palaeo-drainage of Tortonian-Late Messinian age, that could be considered sufficient to delineate the course of the Nile River up to the Gulf of Sirt (fig. 1).

Nile, Palaeo-drainage, Sahabi, Sirt, Cyrenaica.