Europe's most powerful waterfall to have formed after three short but violent flooding events

According to a recent study, published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), three fierce flooding events, separated by thousands of years, are responsible for the formation of the 28km long and 100m deep Jokulsargljufur canyon, home to Europe's most powerful waterfall. 

Geologists from University of Edinburg and Germany, after analyzing the chemistry of the rocks, constructed a timeline of the canyon's formation history. What they found out is that major changes to the canyon's dimensions and morphology occurred over three brief and fierce periods, marked by massive flooding events. The flooding events occurred two, five and nine thousand years ago and radically modified Iceland's landscape by essentially carving the canyon's final surface. It is estimated that each flooding event shifted the canyon's waterfalls up to 2km upstream, also having an erosive impact of thousands of years later.

Edwin Baynes, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and the paper's first author with regards to the importance of the study stated: "This insight into one of Iceland's magnificent landscapes helps us better understand these processes, and illustrates their legacy."