Geography Atlas

Where Everything Happened
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Landform

Waterfall

Waterfalls and Cataracts

A point along a river or stream where water descends abruptly over a vertical or near-vertical drop, typically formed where the channel crosses a band of resistant rock that erodes more slowly than the softer rock immediately downstream. A waterfall's plunge continually undercuts the rock at its base, causing the falls to migrate slowly upstream over time as the resistant cap rock is eroded away.

Connections

Shaped By

Source Waterfall (Wikipedia)
Sources
Wikidata: Waterfall
Wikidata Q31657111, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
Waterfall (Wikipedia)
Shaped By: Erosion, Lead
Quote, Shaped By: Erosion, Lead
Waterfalls can be formed in several ways, but the most common method of formation is that a river courses over a top layer of resistant bedrock before falling onto softer rock, which erodes faster, leading to an increasingly high fall.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.