Jomoud's Fotothing

Our holiday trip
Days 6-7-8
NIAGARA FALLS

Original size is recommended
(Niagara Falls creates a fine water mist over a large area, impossible to escape with your camera)

The American Falls
The Niagara River has been cutting its way across the shelf of rock between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie for about 20,000 years. It seems a long time in terms of human experience, but compared to the 500 million year old rocks of the Niagara Escarpment, Niagara Falls was born yesterday. If we consider the rocks of the Escarpment to be one day old, the Niagara River as we know it has been in existence for only 4 seconds. Yet in this short span of time the river has cut 7 miles of gorge and removed billions of tons of rock. The Niagara River is not only very young bur, geologically speaking; it’s working at breakneck speed.
Before we look closer at the last 4 seconds on our geological clock, let’s go back a little further to 11:57 p.m. This corresponds to a bout a million years ago when much of North America was covered with ice. The glaciers advanced and receded several times as the earth’s climate changed. At 11:59:56 they finally disappeared. The depression left by the weight of ice, filled with water and became the forerunner of the present Great Lakes.
This fresh-water sea found many outlets to the Atlantic Ocean. One outlet spilled over the Niagara Escarpment and Niagara Falls was born.
When the Niagara River began cascading over the 250 foot-high Escarpment, the pounding water quickly wore away the soft shale under the upper layer of limestone, until finally it broke off. The cycle was repeated again and again over the next several thousand years. The Falls crept gradually upstream.
At the site of the present-day Whirlpool, after 3 ½ miles of excavating, the river broke into an old, filled-in gorge cut by another river thousands of years before. The Falls disappeared and a long series of rapids gradually washed away the glacially deposited fill until the old gorge was re-excavated. The Falls as we see them today then reappeared and the process of cutting back into the rock started once again.
Niagara Falls is located in east central North America, along the Niagara River between western New York and southeastern Ontario. Niagara Falls consists of two cataracts: the Horseshoe Falls (54 m high), on the Canadian side of the river, and the American Falls (55 m high), on the United States side. Goat Island separates the two waterfalls.
The crescent-shaped Horseshoe Falls carries about 95% of the Niagara River's water over its 640 m long crest. The straighter crest of the American Falls measures 328 m and carries only 5% of the water. A small section of the falls between Goat Island and small Luna Island is also known as Bridal Veil or small Luna Falls.
Every second, about 5,520 cubic meters of water pours in torrents over the cliffs of the falls of Niagara. As the water plunges from the edge of the falls, it fills the air with a cloud of mist, which often displays many rainbows. The plunging water also sends out a never-ending roar as it strikes the bottom. For this reason, the Iroquois Indians called the cataract Niagara, meaning "thunder of waters."