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bowtiedmara / BowTiedMara
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2024-10-08 10:55:39

bowtiedmara on Nostr: Currently reading River of Darkness, about the trip of conquistador Francisco ...

Currently reading River of Darkness, about the trip of conquistador Francisco Orellana across the Amazon river. At a certain point in the book they cross these San Rafael Falls by walking to the other side over some planks (one member of the crew doesn’t make it).

Turns out that today, those falls are gone. On 2 February 2020, the falls collapsed into a massive sinkhole behind the layer of hard volcanic rock that formed its lip, creating a large natural arch spanning the Coca River.

The natural arch also collapsed about a year later, leaving a gaping ravine at the former site of the falls. During its brief existence, the natural arch may have been the longest in the world, surpassing China's Xianren Bridge.

The waterfall itself receded upstream as a result of rapid upward erosion, and disappeared within months as the river carved a new, more gradually descending channel.

The collapse of the falls has significantly altered the Coca River, with a deep new canyon appearing upstream of the previous falls and large volumes of sediment being deposited downstream. Erosion upstream has destroyed several bridges and pipelines and, beginning in 2023, threatens to undermine the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, which was built upstream of the falls in 2016.

This is the before and after:
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