Tahara Falls

Tahara Falls formed where the Katsura River flows over ancient lava from Mt. Fuji, and the volcanic rock on both banks is sculpted into distinctive vertical columns where cooling caused the stone to crack. The falls have changed dramatically over the centuries: in the nineteenth century they fell twenty meters straight down and were reportedly audible from 25 kilometers away, until both banks collapsed in 1898 from erosion. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake shifted the remaining drop another thirty meters upstream. An artificial embankment built in 1956 stabilized the falls into their current form, making this site a record of geological and seismic history.