Niagra Falls

Credit: Space Imaging, Posted on: Sunday, 13 March 2005, 08:53 CST Download full size image

A blue-green veil of water tumbles 51 meters over the rocky precipice of the Niagra Falls in this Ikonos image, acquired on August 2, 2004. Every second, more than two million liters of water plummets over the half-circle of the Canadian/Horseshoe portion of the Niagra Falls, shown here, making it one of the world’s largest waterfalls. The force of the pounding water is sending a cloud of mist up from the bottom of the falls; this same force eats away at the rock behind the falls, pushing them back as much as two meters per year.

Niagra Falls is actually made up of three different falls, the most famous of which are shown in this image. The Niagra River, the narrow strait that connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, forks around Goat Island, seen in the lower left corner of the image. The main portion of the river is pushed over the Canadian/Horseshoe Falls, but the diverted water tumbles down American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls farther downstream. All three falls that make up Niagra Falls are visible in the large image. As the names of the individual falls suggest, the river and the falls mark the boundary between the United States and Canada.

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