According to the study of geological evolution history, the Yellow River is a relatively young river. In the late Early Pleistocene, 1 15000 years ago, there were only some unconnected lake basins in the basin, each of which formed an independent internal water system. Since then, with the uplift of the western plateau, rivers have been eroded and eroded. After the Middle Pleistocene of 654.38+0.05 million years, lakes and basins have been gradually connected, forming the embryonic form of the Yellow River system. It was not until the Late Pleistocene (654.38+ 10,000 years ago) that the Yellow River gradually evolved into a big river running up and down from the source to the estuary.
Historical changes of the yellow river.
In the historical period, the Yellow River has also evolved in the upper and middle reaches of the plain, and some of them have changed greatly. For example, the Hetao reach in Inner Mongolia, below Dengkou before 1850, is mainly divided into two tributaries, the northern branch is the mainstream, the Wu Jia at the foot of Yinshan Mountain, and the southern branch is the present Yellow River. 1850, the downstream of Wu Jia, north of Xishanzui, was blocked and cut off for about 15 km, and the south branch became the mainstream, while the north branch became the backwater channel of Houtao Irrigation Area.
The river from Longmen to Tongguan also fluctuates greatly. However, the evolution of these reaches has little influence on the development of the whole Yellow River. The changes of the Yellow River mainly occur in the lower reaches. Historically, the rivers in the lower reaches of the Yellow River changed from Haihe River in the north to Jianghuai River in the south. According to historical documents, the lower Yellow River burst 1500 times and changed its course more than 20 times.
Refer to the above? Yellow River Committee of Ministry of Water Resources-Overview of the Yellow River