How Old is Victoria Falls?

by Anna
(San Antonio Texas)

How old exactly is Victoria Falls?




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How Old is Victoria Falls?

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Mar 28, 2011
 Formation of Victoria falls
by: Tony

About 150 to 200 million years ago large amounts of volcanic magma were extruded in the Victoria
Falls area. This magma (Basalt Rock) cooled quickly developing enormous cracks or faults as it met with the cooler air and water. Then due to shifts of the earth's plates and much higher rainfall, the whole area became submerged under a huge freshwater lake.

During this period these large fault lines were filled with mainly sand deposits, time and pressure hardened the sand to form sandstone. Later Tectonic movements (earthquakes) caused the lake to drain and the Zambezi River changed its course and found its present day route to the Indian Ocean.

The strong erosive action of the river found the first of these sandstone fault lines some 150 000
years ago. The water eroded through the softer sandstone quicker than through the hard basalt rock therefore forming the first waterfall.
Over the next 150 000 years the river slowly eroded 7 of these fault lines and each one would have been a different waterfall from the one we know today.

The current day waterfall is on the 8th fault line.
The ninth waterfall has already started cutting back through the next fault line. This can be seen to the side of the Devil?s Cataract through Cataract Island. This large east-north-east
fault line across the river is where the next full width falls will form.

What?s amazing is that archaeological diggings have shown that early man lived in this region some 200 000 years ago, meaning that they would have seen the very first set of Falls that were formed.

Therefore man has witnessed over time this extraordinary change in the landscape.

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