Formation of Victoria Falls - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

The sign reads: "Formation of Victoria Falls

Early Geology

The cliffs of the Batoka Gorge are made up of basalt rock that was laid down 150 million years ago and when this lava cooled and solidified, it contracted-cracking or "faulting" in the area of Victoria Falls. In time this mass of broken rock was covered over with deopsits form the Karoo System and later the Kalahari System and so preserved for millions of years.

River capture

5 million years ago there was a geological shift that caused an uplift in the area of central Botswana. This blocked the courses of the upper Zambezi, which had been flowing south to join with the Limpopo River, and created a paleolake, the remnants of which, today form the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. When this lake finally overflowed into the Matesi River it quickly carried away the deposits that had been covering the basalt and then began to remove the broken rock one block at a time, form within the fault lines. Basalt is a very dense, hard rock that resists erosion so the river removes it one block at a time rather than a grain at a time, as would happen with a softer rock. This explains why the gorge, and even the face of the waterfall itself, is not a smooth, water worn surface but retains a rough hewn appearance.

Previous Sites of The Falls

There have been 8 previous sites of the waterfall in this area created as the river has worked its way back upstream, from fault line to fault line. These are clearly visible when viewed from the air. It is believed that the next line of the Falls will originate from the area around the Devils Cataract- either form the Cataract itself or from the cleft that runs through Cataract island. This new site of the Falls will run diagonally back across the river but it will take another 10,000 years to excavate the full length of this new fault line. This is such a slow process that the change from one year to the next is indiscernible."

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Victoria Falls is a waterfall on the Zambezi River in southern Africa, which provides habitat for several unique species of plants and animals. It is located on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and is one of the world's largest waterfalls, with a width of 1,708 m (5,604 ft).

Archeological sites and oral history describe a long record of African knowledge of the site. Though known to some European geographers before the 19th century, Scottish missionary David Livingstone identified the falls in 1855, providing the English colonial name of Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria. Since the mid 20th century, the site has been an increasingly important source of tourism. Zambia and Zimbabwe both have national parks and tourism infrastructure at the site. Research in the late 2010s found that precipitation variability due to climate change is likely to change the character of the fall.
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Group that erected the marker: Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Management Authority URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

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