How Old Is the Thames River

話題沸騰中の How Old Is the Thames Riverについて、詳しいまとめを分かりやすく掲載しています。

Geologists, in their very serious lab coats, say the Thames as we roughly know it is about 30 million years old. Yes, you read that right—thirty. Million. Picture dinosaurs, but much, much later. That’s still old enough to make a mountain feel self-conscious.

But wait—the real kicker is its ancestral riverbed. Before the Thames was a lazy, meandering London landmark, it was a roaring beast called the “Proto-Thames.” That bad boy is estimated to be a jaw-dropping 58 million years old. It started flowing right after the dinosaurs went extinct. Like, “Hey dinos, sorry you’re dead, but I’m going to start my river career now.”

A Quick Trip Through Time (No DeLorean Required)

Imagine London without the Thames. Impossible, right? Well, 450,000 years ago, the Thames actually didn’t flow through London. It was a wild child, wandering way up north near St. Albans. Then a giant ice sheet—basically a big, cold bully—shoved it south to where it is today. Talk about a brutal landlord!

Flash forward to the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The Thames was a massive, raging torrent of meltwater. It was so wide and fast that you could have walked from London to Paris (before the sea drowned that idea). Now it’s a placid, photogenic celebrity—proof that even rivers can mellow with age.