Introduction

Abstract

This book presents the geological evolution of the River Nile within the boundaries of Egypt through a critical synthesis of a large amount of information worked out and assembled over many years. It aims at finding some order in the extremely complex stratigraphy of the fluvial and other sediments which fill the Nile Valley and which escaped erosion and/or diligent human interference. The younger sediments of the Nile are almost barren of datable materials except for the youngest of these which yielded, in addition to archeological materials, a reasonable number of radiocarbon dates and a few fossil remains. The older sediments of the Nile, now known through a large number of bore-holes, though not including materials amenable to radiometric measurements, are fossiliferous. Much of the stratigraphic order adopted in this book for the younger sediments is based on field relations as well as on correlations with sections outside Egypt, especially those described in detail from the Mediterranean and Red Sea areas where extensive oceanographic and submarine geological work has been recently carried out.