Remote sensing, planform, and facies analysis of the Plain of Tineh, Egypt for the remains of the defunct Pelusiac River Jessica Quintanar a , Shuhab D. Khan a, ⁎, Mohamed S. Fathy b , Abdel-Fattah A. Zalat b a Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA b Department of Geology, Tanta University, Egypt abstract article info Article history: Received 30 May 2013 Received in revised form 4 September 2013 Accepted 5 September 2013 Available online 14 September 2013 Editor: B. Jones Keywords: Nile Delta Defunct Pelusiac River Planform analysis Paleogeography The Pelusiac Branch was a distributary river in the Nile Delta that splits off from the main trunk of the Nile River as it flowed toward the Mediterranean. At approximately 25 A.D., it was chocked by sand and silt deposits from prograding beach accretion processes. The lower course of the river and its bifurcation point from the trunk of the Nile have been hypothesized based on ancient texts and maps, as well as previous research, but results have been inconsistent. Previous studies partly mapped the lower course of the Pelusiac River in the Plain of Tineh, east of the Suez Canal, but rapid urbanization related to the inauguration of the Peace Canal mega- irrigation project has covered any trace of the linear feature reported by these previous studies. The present study used multispectral remote sensing data of GeoEYE-1 and Landsat-TM to locate and accurately map the course of the defunct Pelusiac River within the Plain of Tineh. Remote sensing analysis identified a linear feature that is 135 m wide at its maximum and approximately 13 km long. It extends from the Pelusium ruins to the Suez Canal, just north of the Peace Canal. This remotely located linear feature corresponds to the path of the Pelusiac River during Roman times. Planform geomorphology was applied to determine the hydrological regime and paleodischarge of the river prior to becoming defunct. Planform analysis derived a bankfull paleodischarge value of ~5700 m 3 s -1 and an average discharge of 650 m 3 s -1 , using the reach average for the interpreted Pelusiac River. The derived values show a river distributary similar in discharge to the modern dammed Damietta river. Field work completed in April of 2012 derived four sedimentary lithofacies of the upper formation on the plain that included pro-delta, delta-front and delta-plain depositional environments. Diatom and fossil mollusk samples were also identified that support coastal beach and lagoonal environments of deposition. Measured section columns and a shoreline parallel transect were also constructed to portray the paleogeography of the Mediterranean coastline in the Plain of Tineh at ~25 A.D. and indicate that the sampled study area is the downdrift margin of an asymmetric delta with barrier lagoon systems. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Nile River is the longest river in the world, flowing 6829 km from its headwaters in the south of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea in the north. The Nile flows from South Africa due north, before bifurcating north of Cairo into the Rosetta and Damietta branches (Fig. 1). The precursor to the modern Nile River, the Neo-Nile, flowed from the Late Pleistocene into the Holocene. The Neo-Nile was a larger river in comparison to the modern Nile, feeding at least seven distributaries within the delta. Historical texts, including “The Histories” by Heredotus in the 5th century B.C., have referenced the existence of these seven major distributaries in the Nile Delta, including the easternmost Pelusiac Branch (Abdel-Kader, 1982). Fig. 1 shows a generalized interpreted flow path for the more well-known branches. From the west, they are the Canopic, Bolbitine (modern Rosetta), Sebbenytic, Pathmytic (modern Damietta), Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pelusiac (Baynes, 1988). Only the Damietta and Rosetta presently flow to the Mediterranean Sea. The other branches have become defunct or have deteriorated into the network of irrigation canals in the delta (Baynes, 1988). The defunct Pelusiac Branch was an important navigable waterway that extended trade to the east (Sneh and Weissbrod, 1973). As late as the 12th century, Tell el Farama City (ancient Pelusium), located on the mouth of the Pelusiac Branch, was considered the “gateway to the East,” since trade heading to the Asian kingdoms passed through the city on its way to Sinai and Asia (Sneh and Weissbrod, 1973). It flowed northeast past the modern-day Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean. The shoreline retreated during the time of the Neo-Nile and various avul- sions took place in the Plain of Tineh (Fig. 2A) before it went defunct (Stanley et al., 2008). Longshore accretion processes created the present day strandplain on the northeastern side of the Nile Delta and are credited with silting up the Pelusiac River mouth. Carbon 14 dating of mollusks collected in the youngest ridge within the strandplain suggest that the river ceased flowing around 25 A.D. (Sneh and Weissbrod, 1973). Goodfriend and Stanley (1999) suggested that the Pelusiac may have continued to Sedimentary Geology 297 (2013) 16–30 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: sdkhan@uh.edu (S.D. Khan). 0037-0738/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sedgeo.2013.09.002 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sedimentary Geology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sedgeo