Eternal Flame Falls — waterfall
Mpmajewski · CC BY-SA 3.0

Eternal Flame Falls

  • 2 min read
  • 42.702° N 78.752° W

Interesting facts

  • Giuseppe Etiope, the Italian geologist who led the 2013 study and had examined eternal flames worldwide, called this one the most beautiful he had seen.
  • With around 35 per cent ethane and propane, the flame's gas may be the richest in these heavier hydrocarbons of any natural seep ever reported.
  • The gas rises from the Rhinestreet Shale, a rock formation laid down in the Late Devonian period.
  • The same researchers found that a larger eternal flame in Pennsylvania's Cook Forest State Park is no natural seep but a leak from an abandoned gas well.
  • The 2013 research grew out of a US Department of Energy project to find natural gas seeps and measure their contribution to greenhouse gases.
  • Shale Creek, the small stream that forms the falls, is a tributary of Eighteen Mile Creek.
  • Chestnut Ridge Park, home to the falls, takes its name from the chestnut trees on its hills and was improved by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

Why it is worth it

Behind the veil of a small woodland waterfall near Buffalo burns a fire that nobody has to feed. At the foot of Eternal Flame Falls, a cascade about 30 feet (9 m) high on Shale Creek, natural gas seeps from a little grotto in the rock, and once lit it produces a small flame that flickers behind the falling water for most of the year. It occasionally goes out and has to be relit, but the gas keeps coming.

The flame has attracted scientists as well as walkers. In 2013 geologists from Indiana University Bloomington and Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology studied the seep to understand how natural hydrocarbon seeps contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. They found that the gas here is unusually rich in ethane and propane, about 35 per cent, whereas most natural seeps are dominated by methane, and estimated that the main seep releases roughly a kilogram of methane a day. Numerous smaller seeps were found around the falls. Comparing them with gas from local wells, the team traced the source to the Rhinestreet Shale some 400 metres down, with faults opened by tectonic movement letting the gas rise.

That source posed a puzzle. Shale usually has to reach around 100°C before its organic matter breaks down into natural gas, yet the rock feeding this flame is cooler, younger and shallower than typical gas-bearing shale, which suggests some other process, perhaps a natural catalyst, may be at work. The falls lie in the Shale Creek Preserve, once owned by the Buffalo Museum of Science and now part of Chestnut Ridge Park, a county park of more than 1,200 acres established in 1926. Long an obscure local curiosity, the falls drew so many visitors in the 2020s that the descent into the creek bed was rebuilt, with 139 steps and new railings completed in 2023.

Getting there

Eternal Flame Falls is in Chestnut Ridge Park in the town of Orchard Park, Erie County, New York, south of Buffalo. Lackawanna is about 15 km away. The nearest airport is Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF), about 27 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in New York 17The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Beautiful Waterfalls in the United States 13The Most Beautiful Water Wonders in the United States 30The Most Beautiful Waterfalls 90The Most Beautiful Water Wonders 429

From the encyclopaedia

The Eternal Flame Falls is a small waterfall located in the Shale Creek Preserve, a section of Chestnut Ridge Park in Western New York. A small grotto at the waterfall's base emits natural gas, which can be lit to produce a small flame. This flame is visible nearly year round, although it can be extinguished and must occasionally be re-lit.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

42.70177, -78.75171per Wikidata