Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls

The Victoria Falls are located on the Zambezi River, forming the boundary between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Falls form the world’s largest sheet of falling water with a maximum vertical drop of 108 m, and a length of 1,700 m, in full flood (Moore and Cotterill, 2009). The Falls represent a major geomorphological break between low gradient of the up to 2km wide channel upstream and the steep gradient of the norrowly incised gorges downstream. The Falls are a culmination of a long geomorphological process initiated by diversion of drainage off the Kalahari plateau into the mid-Zambezi River that occupies a deep graben, and the Victoria Falls represent the modern position of a west-migrating knickpoint that incised the lower gorges into Jurassic layered basalts that form the bedrock (Derricourt, 1976; Lamplugh, 1907; Maufe, 1936; Nugent, 1990; Moore and Cotterill, 2009). The Victoria Falls and associated eight steep sided downstream gorges have been formed through the changing waterfall positions over an extended geological time. The gorges are an outstanding example of river capture in a tectonic basin. The erosive forces of the water continue to carve the hard basalt (UNESCO World Heritage Document, 1989). Evolution of the Falls and lower gorges was accompanied by deposition of late Cenozoic sediments of the Victoria Falls Formation, which preserve a remarkable assemblage of hominin artefacts.