Where does Angels falls water come from?

by Art B. Pascual

I asked this because I don't see any pictures I saw detailing the areal top view or picture of the tepuy where falls is located. Is there a big river on top? Is it coming from a spring?

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Aug 08, 2015
Origin of the Angel's falls water
by: Arnaldo Z.

The right answer is: RAIN WATER.
The Auyan-tepui, whose height ranges from 1600 to 2450 meters and its top surface area is 650 sq km about, contains a large number of sandstone cracks, forming a very huge reservoir whose capacity can be measured in millions of cubic meters, into which rain water is collected. Angel Falls originate at 979 meters, that is much below the minimum height of the tepui. The falls flow reaches its minimum when the dry season ends, because the volume and the pressure of the water in the reservoir have diminished a lot. Nevertheless, the flow is never interrupted.

Sep 19, 2014
Angel Falls water source
by: Hyde

Where does all this water come from? The Falls flow all year round, although the jungle has wet and dry seasons, so the volume and force of the torrent does vary. The water itself comes from rainfall on the top of the enormous tepui, or table mountain, from which the Falls plunge. Auyantepui is a gigantic plateau, 250 square miles (650 sq km) in area – about the size of Chicago – and it is this vast area which collects the rainfall to power the Falls.

Sep 22, 2013
by: Anonymous

thankyou so much this really helped but where does the water go to?

Dec 05, 2010
Angel Falls' Source
by: World of Waterfalls

From what we were able to see during our visit to Angel Falls and from examining the maps of the area, we believe that the source of the water is from rainfall collecting at the top of the tepuy and draining into channels that ultimately plunge off the tepuy's cliff edge with Angel Falls being the most notable. We think it's analogous to a cloud being a soaked rag and the condensation of the cloud being like us wringing the rag to draw out water.

Without having surveyed the cloud forest at the top of Angel Falls, we can't tell whether its channel is a river/creek/stream or if the moisture seeped into the ground where a channel flows underground before emerging as a spring.

We're not sure why the tepuy here attracts so much rain so consistently, but we'd imagine it has to do with the interaction of the tropical climate combined with the topography of the terrain (especially the height of the tepuy). With enough moisture to sustain a forest at the top of the tepuy, the vegetation could also interact with the local weather (by affecting humidity for example) in such a way as to reinforce the high rainfall of the region.

Hope this helps, but we welcome anyone to come in and provide a more precise answer.

[Note: according to Wikipedia, a tepui (or tepuy) is a table-top mountain or mesa found in the Guiana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran Sabana.]

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