EVIDENCES OF PALEOFLOOD IN LOWER MESOPOTAMIAN FLOOD PLAIN

The flood plain of the Euphrates and Tigris as a geological basin until the Pleistocene which then gradually filled with sediments of the rivers flowing into the Mesopotamian flood plain. According to these processes about 100-150m depth of sediments flowed into the basin and then formed the delta.

During the time of Pleistocene to Recent the rivers that flow within the flood plain changed their courses from time to time because of the subsurface structure movements and development of geomorphological process .

Usually , a flood of water is a result from the changing of rivers , the size of this water flood depending on the size of the original river ( main river or branch river ) , the season of occurrence this flood and the topography of the earth surface around the area of flooding .

In this research some evidences of a huge flooding were detected in lower Mesopotamian plain around Ancient Babylon City in middle of Iraq , this flooding resulted when Euphrates river changed its waterway in near Babylon

The evidences of this flooding were recognized in the excavated settlements that located in west Babylonian area ,the first evidence is occurrence of bed resulted from sedimentation of flooding sediments in between the human living beds of archaeological settlements . some geomorphological features still till now refer to happing of this huge flooding by recognition remains of ancient rivers and ancient marshes .

The flooding bed different in thickness from archaeological site to other may be depending on the distance of the center of flooding and the elevation of the settlement in the time of flooding . the thickness of the flooding beds were between (10 cm to 300cm ) .

The flooding bed is separate between period of human live : before flooding and after flooding , the period before flooding contain destroyed artifact and building while the bed after flooding contain creation of new buildings .