I’ve read that Niagara Falls erodes backwards towards Lake Erie at a rate of 3 feet per year. This means that in a few hundred, maybe thousand (maybe even longer), the falls would have eroded all the way to Lake Erie. What will happen when it does? Will the lake’s floor begin to erode as well or will the water even out? I can’t wrap my head around it.
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Lake Erie won’t exist by that point, the water isn’t just eroding vertically, it also effects the bed (horizontally).
Lake Erie won’t exist by that point, the water isn’t just eroding vertically, it also effects the bed (horizontally).
First, what’s important is the overall volume of the mass that creates the falls. It’s not eroding at a uniform three feet of height across its entire width and depth annually. Second, all the stuff that erodes goes somewhere, so it’s a matter of where it’s redistributed to. It won’t be static and it probably won’t be sudden. The boundaries and sources of water bodies inevitably and fairly constantly (though at different rates and for different reasons) change all the time. The erosion of one waterfall does not mean much in isolation.
First, what’s important is the overall volume of the mass that creates the falls. It’s not eroding at a uniform three feet of height across its entire width and depth annually. Second, all the stuff that erodes goes somewhere, so it’s a matter of where it’s redistributed to. It won’t be static and it probably won’t be sudden. The boundaries and sources of water bodies inevitably and fairly constantly (though at different rates and for different reasons) change all the time. The erosion of one waterfall does not mean much in isolation.
It won’t.
The sheer amount of water diverted for power generation has all but halted the progression of Niagara Falls.
Any erosion that still happens is trivial.
It won’t.
The sheer amount of water diverted for power generation has all but halted the progression of Niagara Falls.
Any erosion that still happens is trivial.
The great lakes are above sea level. Without Erie’s eastern bank holding them back, they’ll (mostly) drain into the Atlantic, flooding everything downstream.
The great lakes are above sea level. Without Erie’s eastern bank holding them back, they’ll (mostly) drain into the Atlantic, flooding everything downstream.
It will take hundreds of thousands of years for that to happen, given current erosion rates.
Of far greater interest to me, is what it will look like when the erosion passes Goat Island, and the US Falls “disappear”.
It will take hundreds of thousands of years for that to happen, given current erosion rates.
Of far greater interest to me, is what it will look like when the erosion passes Goat Island, and the US Falls “disappear”.
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