Was Ur once a coastal city? This was claimed in a book I read,

Atlantis

File: PersianGulf.png (168KB, 902x752px) Image search: [Google]

168KB, 902x752px

>>2819799
The Persian Gulf was bigger back in the day, this is pretty common knowledge.

>>2819845
How did water level drop in that area, and rose in the area around Britain for example?
We know that the isles used to be connected to Europe.

>>2819852
One explanation I can think of is that the region silted up and extended the coastline outward. From what I recall, the Persian Gulf is somewhat shallow.

>>2819852
>How did water level drop in that area,

It didn't. The land rose, because of sediment deposited by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

>>2819852
The isles were connected much earlier than this. At that time the Persian Gulf was almost dry. Only around 4000-3000 BC the sea level rose and flooded to the extent shown in the map. Later the sea level fell by a few meters, which is all it took for the Gulf to shrink by a lot, since it's shallow and marshy in that area.

Here’s a paper about some of this stuff:
http://people.rses.anu.edu.au/lambeck_k/pdf/171.pdf

>>2819900
>>2819903
It’s a plausible hypothesis, but at least according to the paper mentioned here >>2819922 the Tigris and Euphrates shed most of their sediment loads before they reached the sea, so the delta itself probably wasn’t built up much by deposited sediments, but more simply by slight sea level rise.

>>2819939
*sea level fall, fuck

>>2819922
Thanks for the link, I'll read it in a bit.
If the gulf is so shallow, can ships sail there at all? Is Iraq effectively landlocked?

>>2819977
The Gulf can handle the biggest supertankers but it is geologically very shallow. It has a maximum depth of about 300 feet and an average depth of 164 feet.

>>2819977
Ships can sail in many parts of it, but apparently navigation is a bitch for big ships like aircraft carriers due to the risk of running aground.

File: Ancient_Persian_Gulf.jpg (29KB, 665x406px) Image search: [Google]

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During the Ice Age more water was trapped in the polar caps thus leading to lower sea levels worldwide.

That's why England was connected to mainland Europe.

That's why pic related.