Talk:Waterfall/Archive 1

Archive 1

Requests

I googled for some more information about Baatara gorge waterfall near Tannurin, Lebanon, and couldn't find a thing. Can somebody help? where is it in Lebanon? maybe somebody knows how to spell it's name in Arabic and then Google it?

Thanks

YO! I love this website! It helped me with my school work and i got an A+! Thanks so much!

The definition for each type of water falls is not too clear. Would greatly appreciate 1. Little more clarification on the definition of each type 2. Example illustrations for each - may be sub-sections or new top level item 3. Photos for each type —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.236.40.254 (talk • contribs) 01:48, October 16, 2005 (UTC)

"Largest"

I understand "highest" and "highest volume", but what does "largest" mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.210.141 (talk • contribs) December 8 2005

I agree with the above anon comment, just what exactly is supposed to be meant by "largest" - the broadest in extent, or....? In general, these superlatives need to be qualified to describe more carefully what they are supposed to be comparing. Any ideas?--cjllw | TALK 06:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I think largest usually refers to "most powerful", i.e highest product of volume and height (which would be the theoretical limit of power that couls be extracted from the waterfall). 195.128.251.71 22:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

claim to Nth America's tallest

I've removed the following recent insertion, pending a clarification (by "America's tallest", I presume the contributor meant Nth America):

Most do not know it, but neither Multnomah nor Yosemite Falls are America's tallest. In fact, real "waterfallers" as we will call them claim Colonial Creek Falls in the North Cascades of Washington State to be America's tallest. According to scientific predictions, Colonia Creek Falls drops 2584 feet, about 160 feet taller than Yosemite.

Anyone able to verify?--cjllw | TALK 06:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

a very good website on waterfalls, but with a caveat emptor

Way too much arguing on the ranking of the world's tallest (ie. highest) waterfalls, if you ask me. I have been photographing waterfalls for some 36-years. In 2008, after ten-years work, I will publish a book on Norway's waterfalls. Now, as for the Gocta Cataracts, those who insist that they are the world's third tallest need to bring out their calculators -- not to mention accessing the Google pages under waterfalls. For example, two Norwegian waterfalls -- Ramnejlsfossen (formerly called Utigordsfossen) and Mongefossen have been published as the world's third and fourth tallest respectively for a very long time. But, the recent discovers of Gocta are not about to let this verifiable information get in their way. After all, as Mr P T Barnum once remarked, "there is a sucker born every minute!'. I ask you, would you create news if you called Gocta the third tallest as opposed to the firth tallest. It does not take a genius to arrive at the answer. John Steven Lasher.--Jslasher 08:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Highest volume waterfall listing may be incorrect

A waterfall website lists two waterfalls as being higher volume than Boyoma Falls. They are

• Inga Falls at 1,500,000 cfs on the Congo River, Congo
• Livingstone, Chutes de at 1,240,000 cfs on the Congo River, Congo
• Boyoma Falls at 600,000 cfs on the Lualaba River, Congo

Seen on http://www.world-waterfalls.com/database.php?s=N&t=W&orderby=avevolume&sortLimit=5000

And if one wants to consider the Messinian salinity crisis where the Mediterranean Sea dried up and then re-flooded, the article says "the resulting waterfall could have been higher than Angel Falls is today (979 meters), and far more powerful." which would have dwarfed any current falls. Also, this webpage (http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_350.html) references Kenneth J. Hsu: “The Mediterranean Was a Desert”, Princeton University Press, NJ, 1983, pp. 6, 171., saying that "Salt water from the “bathyal realm” of the Atlantic inundated the Mediterranean desert as a “giant waterfall” that cascaded at the rate of about 40,000 cubic km/yr, more than a thousand times the rate of Niagara Falls, according to Hsu."

Doing the math you can see that 40,000 km³/yr is 1,268,391 m³/sec. (The Niagara Falls is 168,000 m³/min or 2800 m³/sec, which says the Gibralter falls would have been 500x Niagara.) (Either way these are not small numbers.)

Deletions with no explination.

Where has all the website links gone? In october of this year there was a great list of external website links...now there is only the world waterfall database which, albiet a great site, provides only the largest falls...There should be coverage of all not just the biggest. Also the link to Falls bagging has been removed. It's a stub, but its informative and related to waterfalls...no reason to remove it from this page. Can these be reinserted?

Comment from Npeeff: I just put back my waterfall website link to the Tahquamenon falls page because my site Escapingtoparadise has pictures of this waterfall and 40 other Michigan falls. It also has waterfall photos from 15 different states. If you visit my site and check the content, I don't see how it's not relevant to the subject of waterfalls? I recently put my link on this page and a few other waterfall pages on Wikipedia, but my links were erased because someone told me it was advertising. Am I trying to get more visitors on my site? Sure, but if you like visiting waterfalls, I think most people would enjoy my website.

--Npeeff 17:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)Npeeff

I think there's a rule that doesn't allow too much external links in any one article... themaee^talk 21:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Formation section graphic

Could someone with better software than I redo the graphic to fix the spelling? "Plungpool" should be two words. Also, there needs to be an 'e' on the end of "plung"; otherwise it rhymes with "dung" and "flung". Rivertorch 18:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

'chute-type' linked on featured picture, not in article

The main-page featured picture, labeled: "Fulmer Falls ..Fulmer Falls is a chute type waterfall located in .." has the words "chute-type waterfall" linked to the Waterfall page, but the term "chute-type waterfall" is never mentioned or defined there. I Googled all over the place and couldn't find a definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.224.18 (talk) 07:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

better describation

this needs beter definations —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosco21 (talk • contribs) 15:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Geographic bias for "significant" waterfalls

The list of waterfalls is very biased geographically. There are only a few waterfalls for the whole Southern Hemisphere listed (most in South America), but about twice as many are listed for the USA alone. Only a few are listed for Africa, none for Australia, New Zealand or Antarctica, and only a few for smaller islands.

Significant waterfalls should meet objective criteria such as these:

• Selection criteria: tallest, widest, largest flow. (This list may be expand as necessary using natural features of the waterfall, but not so as to slant it to a USA/European POV).
• Top three for each criterion in the world
• Top for each criterion on each continent
• Top for each criterion for all waterfalls not on a continental land mass
• Most significant waterfalls from a historical perspective such as a major war fought over access to a waterfall.
• Other criteria may be considered as well if significant (tallest seasonal waterfalls, etc)

-- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 03:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Little girl requires short answer

My Seven year old needs to present a project to her class explaining why waterfalls go on forever finding it difficult to keep the answer simple, little help please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.9.236 (talk) 06:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Not all waterfalls "go on forever", but this page is for discussing improvements to the article. You might try asking at the Reference Desk. Rivertorch (talk) 16:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me...

..or is the picture at right of the lead section constantly changing? themaee^talk 21:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

poo shelf

"Streams become wider and shallower just above waterfalls due to flowing over the poo shelf" - is this correct or is it a typo? Swampy 121.217.142.65 (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Rivertorch (talk) 00:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"most beautiful waterfall in Bangladesh"

The article says that Jadipai Falls is the "most beautiful" waterfall in Bangladesh. Isn't wikipedia supposed to provide facts instead of opinions? Ttow1944 (talk) 00:47, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Verifiable facts, yes. I have removed that entry, which is inherently impossible to verify, along with the other two redlinked entries. There is no reason to list a waterfall there if we don't have an article on it. Rivertorch (talk) 05:30, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Indoor Waterfalls

I think the text describing the image of the indoor waterfall as the "tallest indoor waterfall" and text describing the Detroit waterfall below it as the "largest waterfall" are needlessly confusing. Since I didn't even see a source for the Dubai waterfall claim, I removed that one. If someone really wants it back, fine. But maybe link to a source and a rewrite on the Detroit waterfall? - 98.238.239.45 (talk) 05:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I boldly took out the info on indoor and artificial waterfalls. The intro defines a waterfall as a natural phenomenon, so indoor waterfalls are not really the same thing. They are more a kind of fountain or water feature, and should be covered there. Or have their own article which could be "see alsoed" here. Steve Dufour (talk) 22:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Good call. Rivertorch (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I am thinking about starting Artificial waterfall soon. I hope everyone will like it. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• Artificial waterfall now started. Actually a more interesting topic than I expected. Lots of room for fans to add material. I will come back soon and grab pictures and listings from previous versions of this article. Steve Dufour (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Waterfalls and humans

How about a section on this? Like waterfalls as tourism and/or romantic sites, or waterfalls in art and fiction, or even (gasp) popular culture? Steve Dufour (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

If done carefully, to avoid its becoming a dumping ground for an endless stream of unsourced and poorly sourced trivia, it's probably a good idea. Rivertorch (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

How about "waterfalls in video games"? Ha ha.  :-) -Steve Dufour (talk) 21:29, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Rivertorch (talk) 07:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

hi

Hi everyone I am writing to ask what is a waterfall? how are waterfalls formed? where in the world do waterfalls are found? all these quetions is the information that I want to know so pleas any one who knows a website or something that can help me pleas say it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.66.246.188 (talk) 12:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Images etc.

I've begun taking a stab at rationalizing the images in the article. The situation is still far from ideal, but the written content is still so minimal at this point that there just isn't enough text on which to hang relevant, context-based images. Recently, it had gotten to the point where the images seemed to have been selected and arranged almost at random, and I hope what I've done is preferable to that, if only as a stopgap measure. The method to my madness, in case anyone was wondering: put images of the best-known falls up top and relegate everything else to the gallery (which still is in serious need of culling) and sort it by type of fall. Rivertorch (talk) 06:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've removed more images and rearranged the remaining ones a bit. Also removed the "too many pictures" template. Although there is still a rather high proportion of images to text, the better solution now would be to expand the text. The remaining images work well to illustrate many of the most notable falls in the world, as well depicting various types of fall. Rivertorch (talk) 04:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Update: In my opinion, the images of Victoria and Niagara, and probably Rhine, belong in the body of the article. They get lost amid the images in the gallery section at the bottom. Rivertorch's Evil Twin (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I'd cut it to two images - one of a shot looking up from the ground, and one of an aerial photo of a large river breaking into a waterfall in several places. The other images are iconic waterfalls, but they seemed quite similar to each other and I don't think they add anything to the reader's immediate understanding of the subject, particularly when they're all grouped under the "Formation" section and say nothing more than "this is waterfall X in country Y".

Really we should be tying the images to the content as strongly as possible. Is there a good example of "waterfalls can occur along the edge of a glacial trough" to put next to that paragraph, with a caption highlighting how it's a good example? Can we put an image into "Types" and say what type it is? --McGeddon (talk) 17:50, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@User:McGeddon: Sorry, I somehow missed your reply. I see what you're saying and I can't deny it makes sense: several of the falls depicted are similar and they don't particularly add to the reader's understanding of the topic at its most basic level. One of the reasons I chose the iconic falls images, one from each continent, was to discourage drive-by edits from people who wanted to see their local seventh (more like seven thousandth) wonder of the world—or, in some cases, a photo they'd taken and were inordinately proud of—high up in the article. For what it's worth, I think it has mostly worked. And substitute the word "noteworthy" for the word "iconic", and you might conclude there is some rational justification for illustrating the article thus.

What I'd really like to do is expand the %$@# out of the article. Waterfalls are among the most celebrated natural features of the planet, and this article doesn't even begin to do them justice. (Compare it with Mountain, for instance.) I haven't had much time, and the geologic aspects are far from my area of expertise, but I'd still like to give it a go. If the article were, say, doubled in length, perhaps there would be room for both the iconic and the content-relevant. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 01:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Astrophysical cascades

off topic

the singularity cascade theory, is about a permanent flow of black hole quark-gluon plasma towards the singularity, but before it reaches it, due to quantum tunneling and the uncertainty build up, that plasma appears back at a probabilistically diffused part of the "singularity cascade". That process is eternal, but after many billions of years, an unfed black hole, loses a critical amount of mass. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:587:4109:d400:1114:e515:7861:abd (talk • contribs) 21:21, December 14, 2016 (UTC) Absolutely nothing to do with this article. Meters (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Definition of a Seasonal Waterfall?

I got here from East_Snow_Mountain_Falls which is described as a Seasonal Waterfall, so came here looking for the definition of seasonal, and found only that the Yosemite fall is also seasonal, without a definition of what that means. Likewise, following the linked season page doesn't appear to have a description of this phenomena either.

I feel like a clarification would be helpful to cite, possibly under the Types sub-header? Cheers to undertaking. Elfabet (talk) 14:11, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Potentail source with answer in last paragraph, although I don't know if the quality of the site would pass:

https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-do-waterfalls-form — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elfabet (talk • contribs) 14:18, 3 October 2018 (UTC)