Gocta Cataracts Facts
- The stunning Gocta Cataracts forms an incredible waterfall in an extremely remote section of the world, in Peru. It also ranks as the fifth highest waterfall that men know of.
- Though indigenous peoples knew about this place for centuries, it was completely secret to the rest of the world until 2005.
- The magnificent site flows into the Cocahuayco River. The area remains extremely remote, and the local terrain stays quite rugged and with a heavy forest.
- Yet, that does not scare tourists at all and a burgeoning tourist presence now appears to be developing in the area, despite the difficult terrain.
Gocta Cataracts Physical Description
The gorgeous Gocta Cataracts serves as a beautiful example of high altitude geology. The uppermost part of the waterfall lies at an altitude of about 7,500 ft (2,286 m).
Further, this marvel has two tiers and has a combined drop of an astounding 2,531 ft (771 m).
The upper section drops roughly 700 ft (213 m) while the lower falls plummets an incredible 1,831 ft (558 m). Also, the maximum width of the entire site measures roughly 200 ft (61 m).
The altitude at which this marvel of Nature formed is situated is sufficient that at times the uppermost portion is obscured by clouds.
Photographer: Martin St-Amant
CC License: https://bit.ly/1E6HPMf
Gocta Cataracts Location and History
The beautiful Gocta Cataracts lies within what ranks as one of the most remote and difficult to reach sections of the Peruvian jungle, in South America.
The researcher Stefan Ziemendorff was the first known non-local to ever see this astounding geological feature. Due to its remoteness and frequent cloud cover, this only occurred in 2002.
Regrettably, for many conservationists, the Peruvian government decided in 2006 to develop the area surrounding the falls as a tourist site.
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I believe the first picture is actually of Lesotho’s Maletsunyane Waterfall in Africa….
Hello, Corne,
Thank you for your attention to detail, as well as your patronage. We endeavor for accuracy in all our articles, of course. To that end, we make every effort to ensure that we use accurate images. However, not being trained professionals ourselves in the many fields of study our articles span ( biology, botany, zoology, geology, etc.) we are necessarily reliant upon the accuracy of our sources themselves.
When we select an image, we attempt to cross-check its accuracy in multiple ways. However, we, and our sources themselves, of course, are only human, therefore mistakes do occur on occasion. I double-checked the image you referred to, and multiple sources list it as Gocta Cataracts. However, again, it remains entirely possible that those other sources themselves incorrectly designated the image, based on yet another error.
To that end, we have replaced the questionable image with another, hopefully, better one. Thank you for bringing this possible error to our attention.
Sincerely,
OBP