When you buy through linkup on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it mould .
Name : Denmark Strait cataract
localization : Denmark Strait
Visualization of the North Atlantic Ocean showing the direction of ocean currents.
Coordinates:67.06195932031873 , -23.96634920730749
Why it ’s unbelievable : The cataract is the world ’s biggest waterfall , taller even than Angel Falls .
The Denmark Strait cataract is a submarine waterfall in the sea channel between Iceland and Greenland . It is technically theworld ’s largest falls , with water plunging 11,500 feet ( 3,500 measure ) down a slope from the top of the cataract to its bottom .
Diagram showing the structure of the Denmark Strait cataract.
The falls itself is about 6,600 feet ( 2,000 m ) tall , because it lands in a deep pool of stale piddle that sweep the remainder of the gradient . That ’s still double the meridian of Angel Falls — the tallest falls on commonwealth — even if the Denmark Strait cataract does n’t wait as dramatic as the landmark in Venezuela .
Related : rake Falls : Antarctica ’s crimson waterfall forged from an ancient out of sight heart
The cataract is as all-encompassing as the Denmark Strait , roughly 300 stat mi ( 480 kilometer ) across , and the seabed drops off over a length of 310 to 370 land mile ( 500 to 600 km ) . " If we picture it , it looks like a relatively low - gradient slope,“Mike Clare , leader of marine geosystems at the U.K. ’s National Oceanography Centre in Southampton , antecedently told Live Science .
As a result , water gushing down the cataract motion at much slower speeds than those record at other waterfalls — 1.6 groundwork per 2d ( 0.5 meters per second ) compare with100 foot per second ( 30.5 m / s)at Niagara Falls , for model . " If you were down there , you in all probability would n’t notice a whole heap going on , " Clare said .
Glaciers carve out the Denmark Strait cataract between 17,500 and 11,500 years ago , during the last ice rink age . The falls straddle the Arctic circle and funnel frigid weewee from the Greenland , Norwegian and Iceland seas into the Irminger Sea , a region of the North Atlantic that iscrucial for Atlantic - wide ocean circulation .
The waters northwards of the cataract are about 1,300 feet ( 400 m ) deep , but only the bottom 660 feet ( 200 m ) cascade down the slope . The top one-half sits at the surface and mixes with water flowing northward through the strait . After cash in one’s chips the Denmark Strait , the bottom half continues south along the ocean floor to the Antarctic , where it enter a global loop of ocean stream called the thermohaline circulation .
— Marble Caves : Chile ’s aeriform cobalt blue caverns with ' mineral trash cream ' on the rampart
— Nazaré : The big - wave surfer ’s paradise bear out of the with child underwater canyon in Europe
— Diamond Beach : Iceland ’s spellbinding black moxie beach address in effervesce crank jewel
None of this is seeable above the waves in the Denmark Strait . " At the surface , you have distinctive sunny Arctic conditions,“Anna Sanchez Vidal , a professor of nautical science at the University of Barcelona in Spain who led a research expedition to the strait in 2023 , antecedently say Live Science .
The falls is n’t perceptible from space either , she said , except through map indicators , such as temperature and salinity .
The Denmark Strait cataract is n’t the only known underwater falls , although other document cascades ca n’t compete with it in size . There are feature recognise as knickpoints that often come along continental margins that look a lot more like waterfalls on land , Clare order , but these are little in comparison to the monstrous cataract .
chance upon moreincredible places , where we foreground the wondrous story and science behind some of the most striking landscape on Earth .
