The tallest waterfall in the world is
Venezuela's Angel Falls, which plunges 3,212 feet (979 meters), according to the
National Geographic Society.
The falls descend over the edge of Auyán-Tepuí,
which means Devil's Mountain, a flat-topped elevated area of land with sheer
cliff sides located in Canaima National Park in the Bolivar State of
Venezuela.
Angel Falls is named after an
American explorer and bush pilot, Jimmy Angel, who crashed his plane on
Auyán-Tepuí in 1937.
The waterfall is fed by the Churún River, which spills over
the edge of the mountain, barely touching the cliff face. The height of the fall
is so great that the stream of water atomizes into a cloud of mist, then trickles back together at the bottom of the
plunge and continues on through a cascading run of
rapids.
Angel Falls' total height, which is
more than a half-mile (almost 1 kilometer), includes both the free-falling
plunge and a stretch of steep rapids at its base. But even discounting these
rapids, the falls' long uninterrupted drop of 2,648 feet (807 m) is still a
record breaker and is around 15 times the height of North America's Niagara
Falls, according to the World Waterfall Database, a website maintained
by waterfall enthusiasts. [See Stunning 360-Degree Views of Spectacular Victoria Falls.]
However, Angel Falls is only the tallest
waterfall on land. Technically, the largest known waterfall lies underwater,
between Greenland and Iceland.
The Denmark Strait cataract is more than three
times the height of Angel Falls, dropping water a whopping 11,500 feet (3,505
m).
The underwater waterfall is formed by the
temperature difference between the water on each side of the Denmark Strait.
When the colder, denser water from the east meets the warmer, lighter water from
the west, the cold water flows down and underneath the warm
water.
The Denmark Strait cataract is also
the the top waterfall in terms of volume, carrying 175 million cubic feet (5.0
million cubic meters) of water.
Back on land, pinpointing the largest waterfall
is a little trickier because there is no universal standard for designating what
counts as a waterfall, according to the World Waterfalls
Database.
Some waterfalls consist of a single, sheer
drop; others include a gentler cascade over rapids; and still others involve a
combination of the two (like Angel Falls).
The World Waterfalls Database lists Inga
Falls, an area of rapids on the Congo River, as the waterfall with the largest
volume. More than 11 million gallons (46 million liters) of water flow through
Inga Falls each second. However, without a significant vertical drop, Inga Falls
may not count as a waterfall under other classifications.
Of waterfalls that do include a vertical
drop, the waterfall with the greatest volume is the 45-foot-tall (14 meters)
Khone Falls, on the border between Laos and Cambodia. Spilling 2.5 million
gallons (9.5 million liters) of the Mekong River every second, Khone Falls' flow
is nearly double the volume of Niagara Falls.
This article was first published on Aug.
10, 2010. Live Science writer Kacey Deamer contributed to an update of this
article.
By Molika Ashford
With many thanks to Live
Science
