If you’ve ever worried that we’ve solved all the mysteries of nature, fear not. Minnesota’s Devil’s Kettle Falls has been puzzling hikers and geologists for generations. At the falls, along Lake Superior’s north shore, a river forks at a rock outcropping. While one side tumbles down a two-step stone embankment and continues on like a normal waterfall, the other side vanishes into a deep hole and disappears—apparently forever.
The Devil’s Kettle Waterfall. A scary-sounding name for the area’s most mysterious waterfall. Located on the Brule River flowing through Judge C.R. Magney State Park near Hovland, MN, 20 miles north of Grand Marais, MN, the Devil’s Kettle Waterfall has been baffling visitors for decades. One side of the river rumbles onto a stone embankment and down the rocks. As waterfalls typically do. The other side, however, flows into a geological wonder known as the Devil’s Kettle, and… disappears?
A Geological Wonder
Well, perhaps not. The mystery of the Devil’s Kettle Waterfall has been stumping visitors and geologists alike for a number of reasons. For one, the rock that the Devil’s Kettle formed into is Rhyolite. Rhyolite is formed from a volcanic eruption. It’s normal to find small kettles in this kind of rock near waterfalls because of the force of the water and the sand and rocks carried by the river flow. However, the Devil’s Kettle is special in that this isn’t a small, shallow pothole. In fact, the bottom Devil’s Kettle cannot be seen. Its true exit point remains (mostly) unknown.
So how and why the Devil’s Kettle formed the way it did is one mystery. However, the mystery most often discussed when talking about the Devil’s Kettle is where exactly the water goes once it enters the Kettle.
So, Where Does the Water Go?
There are a few theories as to where exactly the water then flows into the Devil’s Kettle goes. In 2016 geologists measured the water at the top of the waterfall and then measured the water a few hundred feet below the waterfall. They found that the amount of water was the same, despite about half of it flowing into the Kettle. Because of this, the most pervasive (and likely) theory to date is that the water flows into the Devil’s Kettle and then flows back out right at or right below the waterfall.