Iguazu Falls

The Waterfalls of Iguaçu (Portuguese: Cataratas do Iguaçu, Spanish: Cataratas del Iguazú) form the largest complex of waterfalls in South America. They are on the border between the Argentine province of Misiones 80% and the Brazilian state of Paraná 20%.

What is called the cataratas is a set of between 270 and 300 waterfalls, depending on the amount of water that flows through the river Iguaçu. The waterfalls are 2.7 kilometers wide and fall down to 82 meters. The most famous part of the falls is the "Garganta do Diabo" (throat of the devil), a large semi-circular waterfall of 150 meters wide in which the water falls 70 meters into the depth. Moreover, the border between Argentina and Brazil goes straight over this point, so that most of the waterfalls are in the Argentinian territory. However, the water flows away from Argentina, so that the most complete view from the Brazilian side can be seen.

The falls are located in two national parks, Iguazú National Park in Argentina and Iguaçu National Park in Brazil, which were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1984 and 1986 respectively.

There are two cities close to the falls. The largest is in Brazil and is called Foz do Iguaçu, the other city is Puerto Iguazú in Argentina. Not much further is the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, the three-country point between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and furthermore also the Itaipudam.

The legend

The name Iguaçu means "big water" in the Indian language Guaraní ("Y" is water and "Guasu" is large). According to a legend of this Indian people, the virgin Naipi was chosen to marry the god M'Moy (M'Boi), that is, to be sacrificed to the divine water snake, but she fell in love with the Indian Tarobá and he with her. The lovers decided to flee the river with a canoe before the god could marry Naipi. When the god M'Moy discovered what had happened, he started the chase in the form of a large snake. At the place where he found them, he drilled himself into the ground, creating a large abyss. He turned Naipi into a stone that would be hurled by the water forever, and her lover into a palm tree on the shore. Naipi and her dream man were doomed to see each other for eternity.

Geology

Different continents formed the supercontinent Pangea. From the Jurassic Pangea breaks apart into successive phases. Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia each go their own way. Due to this divergent plate movement, various developments will follow in the coming millions of years. First and foremost, magma comes to the surface at the fracture surface of this split. Huge packages of flood basalt are created. At the current Iguaçu falls, the basalt package, consisting of several layers, reaches a thickness of almost 1 km. Gradually the basalt coolscausing shrinkage cracks. The divergent movement and the driving force of the magma cause the lifting of the edges of the rift, in this case the Serra Do Mar. Because of this they get a weak slope away from the Rift valley and the cracks get bigger. Meanwhile, due to the dry and warm conditions, the area is covered with a layer of sand that will evolve into aeolian sandstone. One of the cracks, created by the combination of cooling basalt and the upward moving rift flank, becomes the bed of the Paraña. Because the slope of the Serra Do Mar mainly descends to the west, most rivers flow into the Paraña, giving it an enormous flow. The original Iguaçu waterfalls were originally about 23 km more downstream, due to the average annual erosion of 3 mm in the basalt they are located at the current location.

Iguaçu in the comparison

Brazilians are very proud to tell about the visit that Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt, made to the falls. After seeing so much beauty, the first lady said: "Poor Niagara!". The waterfalls of Iguaçu are indeed larger than those of Niagara. A better comparison can be made with the Victoria Falls in Africa. Iguaçu is 2.7 km wider than the approximately 1.6 km of the Victoria Falls, even without the total of 900 meters of different small islands between the falls. However, the Victoria Falls have no intermediate islands at high tide, making it the largest contiguous waterfall in the world.

The Victoria Falls also win in volume. At its peak, 9.1 million liters per second collapsed in Africa, while at Iguaçu this is only 6.5 million liters. In extreme circumstances, however, both achieved equivalent results at more than 12 million liters per second. Niagara, however, wins from both waterfalls when it comes to annual totals: where both the Iguaçu waterfalls and the Victoria waterfalls fluctuate very much at the time of the year, the water flow at the Niagara waterfalls is fairly constant.

The waterfalls of Iguaçu, however, win over the accessibility of the Victoria Falls. Thanks to the shape of the falls, beautiful views are also possible. In the Gargante do Diabo the water plunges down on three sides, so that you can see 260 degrees of waterfall nearby. Because Iguaçu also consists of so many smaller waterfalls, you can view the natural phenomenon in small pieces. The Victoria Falls do not offer that possibility because the water normally comes down in one piece, and a total overview is made impossible by the deep gorge into which the water falls.

Drought 2006

In the winter of 2006 (July), large parts of South America were hit by a severe drought, which also meant that the rivers had to process a lot less water. Whereas in October 2004 there was an abundance of water that even the mighty Itaipú hydroelectric power plant could not cope with, the falls were suddenly dry for the most part. The total throughput of water was suddenly only one fifth of what normally falls down.