Tehran Plain

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The Tehran Plain is a landscape formation in Iran delimited by the adjacent Alborz Mountain range. It is a site of prehistoric archaeological and geoscientific interest. Numerous faults and deformed quaternary units in the Tehran plain prove it is a region of ancient tectonic activity.

Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The informal term "Late Quaternary" refers to the past 0.5–1.0 million years.

Contents

Geology

The Tehran Plain is a landscape formation in Iran. It consists of Neogene and Quaternary sediments. [1]

The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene. Some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. The term "Neogene" was coined in 1853 by the Austrian palaeontologist Moritz Hörnes (1815–1868).

The North Tehran Fault thrust up Eocene rocks of the Alborz Mountain range. Geomorphologically three different zones can be described: [1] In the western part, the plain has been deformed by thrusting, as can be seen by a segmented and internally deformed anticline and old and diverted channels on both sides. This process has been dated at possibly after 25,000 years. In the central part of the plain, which lies below the megacity of Tehran, thrusting and left-lateral strike-slip faulting has caused several uplifted fluvial terraces, reminiscent of a transpressional structure of uncertain age, possibly ~195,000 years, i.e. Pleistocene.

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the Grande Coupure or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified, though their exact dates are slightly uncertain.

Anticline geological term

In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the location where the curvature is greatest, and the limbs are the sides of the fold that dip away from the hinge. Anticlines can be recognized and differentiated from antiforms by a sequence of rock layers that become progressively older toward the center of the fold. Therefore, if age relationships between various rock strata are unknown, the term antiform should be used.

Megacity metropolitan area with a total population in excess of ten million people

A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population in excess of 10 million people. Precise definitions vary: the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2014 "World Urbanization Prospects" report counted urban agglomerations having over 10 million inhabitants. A University of Bonn report held that they are "usually defined as metropolitan areas with a total population of 10 million or more people". Others list cities satisfying criteria of either 5 or 8 million and also have a population density of 2,000 per square kilometre. A megacity can be a single metropolitan area or two or more metropolitan areas that converge. The terms conurbation, metropolis, and metroplex are also applied to the latter. The term metacity has been used to describe metropolitan conurbations containing over 20 million people.

In the Eastern part, ramp-structures are ~195,000y-old, of middle Pleistocene [1]

The Middle Pleistocene is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch, from 781,000 to 126,000 years ago. It is preceded by the Calabrian stage, beginning with the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, and succeeded by the Tarantian stage, taken as beginning with the last interglacial.

Archaeology

A channel for artificial water management on the Tehran Plain dating from the Late Neolithic was described in 2009, suggesting that farmers at Tepe Pardis in Iran irrigated crops in the 6th millennium. This corresponds to findings from Choga Mami in Iraq. [2]

Choga Mami

Choga Mami is a Samarran settlement site in Diyala province in Southern Iraq in the Mandali region. It shows the first canal irrigation in operation at about 6000 BCE. It is no longer clear which way cultural developments were flowing in the 6500 to 4500 BCE period.

Stone tool finds on the Tehran Plain from the late Neolithic through to Early Chalcolithic show that stone blade production was organised around craft specialists and also part-time blade producers within the household economy and the craft collapsed with increasing use of bronze. [3]

A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric cultures that have become extinct. Archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a valuable research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use and manufacture.

The Chalcolithic, a name derived from the Greek: χαλκός khalkós, "copper" and from λίθος líthos, "stone" or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic or Aeneolithic is an archaeological period which researchers usually regard as part of the broader Neolithic. In the context of Eastern Europe, archaeologists often prefer the term "Eneolithic" to "Chalcolithic" or other alternatives.

Blade (archaeology) type of stone tool

In archaeology, a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core. This process of reducing the stone and producing the blades is called lithic reduction. Archaeologists use this process of flintknapping to analyze blades and observe their technological uses for historical peoples.

Study of a "landlord village" in Qasemabad, Pishva (also spelled Kazemabad) on the plain has allowed understanding the social and economic organisation of much of Iran's rural population as it was rooted in the early Islamic period until the 1963 White Revolution. [4] Landlord villages were enclosed by a mud brick wall and four bastions. The landlord-owner had a large house while his tenant farmers, who tended irrigated land outside the village had smaller houses. The structure enforced inequality, poverty and the power of the landlord.

Water

Groundwater sampling in southern parts of Tehran plain in 2012 found more than half of the samples unsuitable for drinking and agricultural use because of high levels of salinity. [5]

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Zagros Mountains mountain range

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Angela Landgraf, Lucilla Benedetti, Regis Braucher, Didier Bourles et al. Pleistocene deformation and landscape evolution in the Tehran plain: results from tectonic geomorphology and TCN-dating. Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 12, EGU2010-11196, 2010 EGU General Assembly, 2010
  2. ↑ Gillmore, G.K.; Coningham, R.A.E.; Fazeli, H.; Young, R.L.; Magshoudi, M.; Batt, C.M.; Rushworth, G. (2009). "Irrigation on the Tehran Plain, Iran: Tepe Pardis — The site of a possible Neolithic irrigation feature?". CATENA. 78 (3): 285–300. doi:10.1016/j.catena.2009.02.009.
  3. ↑ Fazeli, H.; Donahue, R.E; Coningham, R.A.E (2002). "Stone Tool Production, Distribution and use during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic on the Tehran Plain, Iran". Iran. 40: 1–14. doi:10.2307/4300616. JSTOR   4300616.
  4. ↑ University of Leicester New insight into Iran's past: Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain. Payvand News, 7/13/09
  5. ↑ Nasrabadi, T.; Maedeh, P. Abbasi (2013). "Groundwater quality assessment in southern parts of Tehran plain, Iran". Environmental Earth Sciences. 71 (5): 2077–2086. doi:10.1007/s12665-013-2610-x.

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