How Old Is Niagara Falls?

Niagara Falls, the iconic waterfall at the border of Ontario, Canada, and New York state, is fairly young, as waterfalls go. It began to form more than 12,000 years ago, toward the end of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. The deluge of the melting ice from the retreating glaciers carved into the rock layers of the Niagara Escarpment, beginning near what is now Lewiston, New York. The rocks have continued to erode over the millennia, and the falls eventually reached their present location and size.