• Question: How does a waterfall work?

    • Keywords:
      • Royal Society of Chemistry: Find out more about:
      Asked by Bailey to Elizabeth, James, Martin, Martin, Rob on 16 Mar 2015.
      • Photo: Robert Woolfson

        Robert Woolfson answered on 16 Mar 2015:

        Waterfalls are just water falling down from a higher place to a lower place. The water is pulled down by gravity, which is the same thing that keeps us glued to the earth.

      • Photo: James Coombs OBrien

        James Coombs OBrien answered on 16 Mar 2015:

        Water is lazy and wants to find the easiest route from the top of mountains to the sea. Sometime this is straight off of a cliff! When this happens you get a waterfall.

        The tallest waterfall in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela in South America which is 3,212 feet high!

      • Photo: Elizabeth Cooper

        Elizabeth Cooper answered on 17 Mar 2015:

        Waterfalls are formed over thousands of years. Basically rock starts to erode and the water carries the rocks away. Eventually its gets to a point where the bed of the river becomes very steep which turns into a waterfall. After this it is just the flow of the water falling down the edge of wall.

    Comments