Nature & Environment
Geologists Found Evidence Which Proves China’s Legendary ‘Great Flood’ Was Real [VIDEO]
Megha Kedia
First Posted: Aug 05, 2016 04:30 AM EDT
According to ancient Chinese texts, it was Emperor Yu who tamed the destructive floodwater by dredging the Yellow River bed with the help of a dragon and a magical water-absorbing dirt. It is believed that Yu restored the land and founded China's first dynasty, the Xia. Until now, the story was considered just a myth. However, now, researchers have finally found evidence that suggests that China's legendary "Great Flood" really happened at about 1,900BC, reported BBC.
The research team, led by Qinglong Wu at Peking University, mapped the sediments distributed along the Yellow River valley to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the flood. They claim that the flood was the result of an earthquake-triggered landslide that dammed the Yellow River to result in a big lake in the Jishi Gorge on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The lake overflowed within six to nine months destroying the landslide dam and sweeping over the Lajia site.
Qinglong Wu told Xinhua that the great flood resulted when roughly 11 to 16 cubic kilometers of the dammed lake water was released in a very short period of time after the dam broke, reported The Guardian.
The researchers calculated that the flood water flowed at a staggering speed of about 300-500,000 cubic meters per second resulting in damage that could have likely extended as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) downstream. They used radiocarbon dating techniques on samples that included the skeletons of children who died in the earthquake at Lajia to conclude that the great flood happened sometime around 1920 B.C.
"That's roughly equivalent to the largest flood ever measured on the Amazon River, the world's largest river," said geologist Darryl Granger, from Purdue University. "It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past 10,000 years." The research findings have been published in the journal Science.
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TagsChina, China Great Flood, geologists, Emperor Yu, Xia Dynasty, Yellow River, Jishi Gorge, Journal Science, China's Xia dynasty ©2024 ScienceWorldReport.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The window to the world of science news.
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First Posted: Aug 05, 2016 04:30 AM EDT
According to ancient Chinese texts, it was Emperor Yu who tamed the destructive floodwater by dredging the Yellow River bed with the help of a dragon and a magical water-absorbing dirt. It is believed that Yu restored the land and founded China's first dynasty, the Xia. Until now, the story was considered just a myth. However, now, researchers have finally found evidence that suggests that China's legendary "Great Flood" really happened at about 1,900BC, reported BBC.
The research team, led by Qinglong Wu at Peking University, mapped the sediments distributed along the Yellow River valley to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the flood. They claim that the flood was the result of an earthquake-triggered landslide that dammed the Yellow River to result in a big lake in the Jishi Gorge on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The lake overflowed within six to nine months destroying the landslide dam and sweeping over the Lajia site.
Qinglong Wu told Xinhua that the great flood resulted when roughly 11 to 16 cubic kilometers of the dammed lake water was released in a very short period of time after the dam broke, reported The Guardian.
The researchers calculated that the flood water flowed at a staggering speed of about 300-500,000 cubic meters per second resulting in damage that could have likely extended as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) downstream. They used radiocarbon dating techniques on samples that included the skeletons of children who died in the earthquake at Lajia to conclude that the great flood happened sometime around 1920 B.C.
"That's roughly equivalent to the largest flood ever measured on the Amazon River, the world's largest river," said geologist Darryl Granger, from Purdue University. "It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past 10,000 years." The research findings have been published in the journal Science.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone