Group 1: Niagara Fall

Being one of the seven world wonders and a well-known tourist site, the Niagara Falls is a group of massive falls situated on the section of Niagara River locating on the border between Ontario, Canada, and New York State, the United States. It is shared between the twin cities, both named as Niagara Falls, located in different countries. It consists of three falls, namely the Canadian Horseshoe Falls (54-57m high, 670m wide), the American Falls (21-34m high, 260m wide) and the smaller, adjacent Bridal Veil Falls (15m wide) (see Figure 2). The Niagara Falls was formed after glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age, the Wisconsin Glaciation (NFTA, 2007a). Although the Falls is not exceptionally tall in the world, the width and the massive enormous amount of discharge, with more than 168,000 m³ of water falling per minute in high flow and almost 110,000 m³ on average (NPC, 2007a), makes it one of the most powerful and magnificent waterfall in the world.

Figure 1. Aerial photo of the Niagara Falls taken from the Canadian side (Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Niagara_falls_aerial.id.jpg)

Niagara Falls is prominent for its beauty and as a precious source of hydroelectric power for the neighboring regions. Tourism development has been initiated since the 1820s when the first paved road and the first canal was constructed in 1827 and 1829 respectively (NPC, 2007). Since then, the international tourism, together with urban and commercial development in the Niagara Region has grown exponentially over centuries. Besides sightseeing in the Falls, there are plenty of leisure facilities including casinos, amusement parks, theaters, museums, towers, balloon and helicopter rides, as well as boat ride and natural trails. Currently, the total number of visitors in 2007 is estimated to be 20 million.

Until the modern era, the Canadian Falls were retreating southward due to erosion from two to ten feet (0.6 to 3.0 meters) per year (see Figure 3). This process was slowed initially by two factors. The first factor was engineering effort. In 1969, large-scale erosion control project was conducted by shutting off the American Falls using a temporary rock and earth dam. The Falls was reinforced to decelerate further erosion. The second one was due to diversion of increasing amounts of flow from the Niagara River into hydroelectric plants in both the United States and Canada


Figure 4: Well-recognized stratified structure on the gorge walls	Figure 5: Rock debris deposit at the foot of the gorge wall

As mentioned on the information board in the Journey behind the falls, the rock formation in the Niagara Region was an overhanging layer of resistant Dolomite limestone, with alternative layers of less resistant shale and sandstone beneath it. Since the beneath layers are rock types with well-stratified structure, such feature can also be observed during the field trip (Figure 4). Moreover, rock deposits can also be found at the foot of the gorge wall (Figure 5).

Snapshots of Niagrar Falls

Reference

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