![Mornos](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Mornos.jpg)
The Mornos ( el, Μόρνος) is a river in
Phocis
Phocis ( el, Φωκίδα ; grc, Φωκίς) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardo ...
and
Aetolia-Acarnania
Aetolia-Acarnania ( el, Αιτωλοακαρνανία, ''Aitoloakarnanía'', ) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the geographic region of Central Greece and the administrative region of West Greece. A combination of the histor ...
in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. It is long. Its source is in the southwestern part of the
Oiti
Mount Oeta (; el, Οίτη, polytonic , ''Oiti'', also transcribed as ''Oite'') is a mountain in Central Greece. A southeastern offshoot of the Pindus range, it is high. Since 1966, the core area of the mountain is a national park, and much of ...
mountains, near the village
Mavrolithari, Phocis. It flows towards the south, and enters the Mornos Reservoir near the village
Lefkaditi. The dam was completed in 1979.
[ΕΥΔΑΠ]
It leaves the reservoir towards the west, near
Perivoli. The river continues through a deep, sparsely populated valley, and turns south near
Trikorfo. The lower course of the Mornos forms the boundary between Phocis and Aetolia-Acarnania. The Mornos empties into the
Gulf of Corinth
The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf ( el, Κορινθιακός Kόλπος, ''Korinthiakόs Kόlpos'', ) is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea, separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece. It is bounded in the east by the Isth ...
about 3 km southeast of
Nafpaktos
Nafpaktos ( el, Ναύπακτος) is a town and a former municipality in Aetolia-Acarnania, West Greece, situated on a bay on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, west of the mouth of the river Mornos.
It is named for Naupaktos (, Latinize ...
.
Geology of the Mornos rift valley
The Mornos river erodes the Mornos
rift valley
A rift valley is a linear shaped lowland between several highlands or mountain ranges created by the action of a geologic rift. Rifts are formed as a result of the pulling apart of the lithosphere due to extensional tectonics. The linear dep ...
, which crosses the trough between
Parnassos
Mount Parnassus (; el, Παρνασσός, ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is and historically has been especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers ...
and
Pindus
The Pindus (also Pindos or Pindhos; el, Πίνδος, Píndos; sq, Pindet; rup, Pindu) is a mountain range located in Northern Greece and Southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km (100 miles) long, with a maximum elevation of 2,637 metres ...
geotectonic zones. Those zones are simply mountain chains trending generally NW to SE. They were formed during the
Hellenic orogeny
The Hellenic orogeny is a collective noun referring to multiple mountain building events that shaped the topography of the southern margin of Eurasia into what is now Greece, the Aegean Sea and western Turkey, beginning in the Jurassic. Prior to ...
, when the mountain zones of Greece were thrust upward in folds due to compression caused by the
subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
of the
African Plate
The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plat ...
under the
Eurasian Plate
The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...
. The old subduction zone remains as the
Hellenic trench
The Hellenic Trench (HT) is an oceanic trough located in the forearc of the Hellenic Arc, an arcuate archipelago on the southern margin of the Aegean Sea Plate, or Aegean Plate, also called Aegea, the basement of the Aegean Sea. The HT begins i ...
. The zones closest to the subduction are the outer Hellenides, where Hellenides is the geologic term for the mountains of Greece. The inner Hellenides are further east.
Some compression continues today. However, in the
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
(23-5 Ma) another geologic regime began, the
extensional In any of several fields of study that treat the use of signs — for example, in linguistics, logic, mathematics, semantics, semiotics, and philosophy of language — an extensional context (or transparent context) is a syntactic environment in w ...
, as part of a process called
back-arc extension. In this regime, not yet totally understood, the overriding plate behind the arc raised by the subduction, termed the "
back arc," began to extend itself, pushing the arc, here the
Hellenic arc
The Hellenic arc or Aegean arc is an arcuate mountain chain of the southern Aegean Sea located on the southern margin of the Aegean Sea Plate. Geologically it results from the subduction of the African Plate under it along the Hellenic subductio ...
, back over the subduction, causing what is known as "slab-rollback," in which the actual line of subduction moves in a direction opposite to the subduction even while the latter is still subducting and compressing. This extension in the back-arc region, causing
normal faults, even while
reverse faults are still collecting in the compression zone, opened the
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...
starting in the Miocene, and the
Corinth rift along the Corinth fault, a normal one, starting less than 2 Ma in the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
(5-3 Ma).
As a result of this "pull-apart" stress across the outer Hellenides, the Gulf of Corinth and its extension on the west, the Gulf of Patras, divided the Peloponnesus from the mainland and moved it south. The seismic zone created by all this deformation is one of the most intense on Earth. In addition to causing the main fault, the stress of extension relieved itself over a number of smaller approximately parallel subfaults within the Corinth Basin and to the north of it. One of these is the Amphissa-Arachova fault system, containing the Delphi fault, and creating the Pleistos rift valley. Further west is the Mornos fault, creating the Mornos rift valley, still separated from the valley to the east by mountains of the outer Hellenides.
Mornos artificial lake
Mornos Lake was created as a reservoir for the city of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, which is populated by about 3.1 million people, representing about 40% of the population of Greece. To create it, a simple earthen embankment was placed across the Mornos River in Central Greece at . Though of earth, the soil is very compact. Monitored by
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
, the dam has a low rate of deformation and is considered one of the more stable in Greece. The fact that the dam is located in a region of high seismicity causes some concern and results in a higher level of monitoring.
Mornos aqueduct
The Mornos
aqueduct is the sole conduit of water extending the entire distance from the reservoir to the processing stations of north Attica. That distance is , which is not exactly straight, but curves generally to the south and is positioned to take best advantage of the terrain. Because of the mountains, an aqueduct of this magnitude was impossible to ancient engineers, who constructed many effective aqueducts marvelous for their times. some of which stand partially yet. What the moderns have that the ancients did not are the modern methods of tunneling. The aqueduct runs through 15 tunnels for a distance of . Due to modern tunneling machines and laser measurement devices no mountain is beyond the capability of the engineers.
The method of transport is still
gravity feed
Gravity feed is the use of earth's gravity to move something (usually a liquid) from one place to another. It is a simple means of moving a liquid without the use of a pump. A common application is the supply of fuel to an internal combustion en ...
, the cheapest and most reliable in case of disaster. There is no need now for arched aerial structures porting water across valleys. Modern conduits go underground through steel and concrete structures far below the valley. For example, the Mornos aqueduct crosses the Pleistos valley at Delphi, but none of it is observable to the visitor, as it is deep underground. It was thought more practical to place the tunnel below the karst imperfections near the surface, as their irregularities would place variable stresses on the structure, facilitating topical wear and tear and creating ruptures.
Places along the river
*
Mavrolithari
*
Lefkaditi
*
Trikorfo
*
Katafygio
Katafygio (Greek language: Καταφύγιο, meaning refuge, shelter, lodge) is a village in Aetolia-Acarnania in Greece. It is built amphitheatrically at an altitude of 620 metres on the Eastern foothills of Makryoro Mountain, which is naked a ...
*
Kato Dafni
Dafni is a village and a community in the municipality of Nafpaktia, Aetolia-Acarnania, Greece. The community consists of the villages Dafni (also ''Ano Dafni''), Kato Dafni (the largest village of the community) and Trypou, now uninhabited. Durin ...
See also
*
List of rivers in Greece
This is a list of rivers that are at least partially in Greece. The rivers flowing into the sea are sorted along the coast. Rivers flowing into other rivers are listed by the rivers they flow into. The confluence is given in parentheses.
For an a ...
Footnotes
References
Reference bibliography
*
*
External links
Landforms of Aetolia-Acarnania
Landforms of Phocis
Rivers of Greece
Rivers of Western Greece
Rivers of Central Greece
Drainage basins of the Gulf of Corinth
{{Greece-river-stub