What is the name of the oldest river in the world?
“The Finke River has long been cited as “the oldest river in the world”, particularly by tour operators, and in popular books and brochures. In places such as the James Range, the Finke flows through deeply incised meanders [2] (see Google Maps image). Because meanders only form on flat plains, the river must have formed before the ranges were pushed up; this happened in a mountain building event referred to as the Alice Springs Orogeny which peaked between 400 and 300 million years age (Devonian to Carboniferous Periods) [3],[4]. Therefore, some parts of the river’s course must have been already in existence around this time. But southern parts of its course must be much younger because the areas where the Finke now flows near the southern edge of the Northern Territory, and further south, were under the sea during the Mesozoic Era [3], part of the Great Artesian Basin. The antiquity of the Finke River is not unique, but applies equally to other large mountain-sourced river systems in
