Jimmie Angel gripped the controls of his airplane. The small plane shook. Angel and his three passengers looked down. They were fl ying above the jungle of eastern Venezuela, in South America. Tall, fl at-topped mountains called tepuis rose from the jungle. Angel hoped they wouldn’t crash into one. It was 1937. Few people had ever seen this distant place. Angel, an American pilot, had. He had fl own over it four years before. Now he was back to explore. At last, Angel saw what he was looking for. It was a giant waterfall. The waterfall dropped thousands of meters off a tepui. Most of the water turned to mist before it hit the ground. Angel wanted to see it up close. He fl ew lower and lower until he landed with a thud. His plane got stuck in the mud! Many years later, the falls were found to be the tallest waterfall on Earth. It measured almost a kilometer straight down. Jimmie Angel introduced this amazing waterfall to the world. So, it was named Angel Falls.
Mysterious Mountain Angel wasn’t the first person to see the falls. T e Pemón people lived nearby. T ey feared this place. T ey believed that evil spirits lived there. T ey named it Auyantepui, or “Devil’s Mountain.” It’s easy to see why. Rising cliff s guard
the mountain. It is oſt en covered in clouds. Strange rock formations and dizzying waterfalls make the mountain seem mysterious. Now, we know more about it. T e top of
Auyantepui is big and broad. It’s more than 10 times larger than Manhattan Island in New York. A small river called the Guaja fl ows across it. At the edge of the tepui, the river plunges down. T at’s Angel Falls. At the bottom, it tumbles into the Churún River. Churún means “thunder” in English. Auyantepui is one of the biggest tepuis.
T ere are over 100 tepuis in Brazil, Guyana, and Venezula.
12 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
Jimmie Angel’s plane got stuck on top of the tepui when it landed.
Rocky Remnants Tepuis are the rocky remnants, or what remains, of a thick layer of sandstone. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the tepuis were all connected. T ey formed a fl at plateau. Over time, wind, rain, and frost cut away at the plateau. T e weathering wore down the sandstone. Weathering broke down the rock into smaller pieces. Streams, rivers, and wind carried the pieces away. T is process is called erosion. Slowly, weathering and erosion carved
crevasses and valleys into the plateau. T e valleys grew wider, while bits of plateau became smaller. By about 70 million years ago, only tepuis were leſt from the plateau. Weathering and erosion are still
changing this landscape. Angel Falls is part of this long, slow process. T e thundering water carves a deep notch into the edge of Auyantepui. T e wind and waves of spray created by the falls crash against the rocks.
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