Fire and water shouldn’t coexist, yet at Eternal Flame Falls near Buffalo, a small orange flame dances behind cascading water like nature’s own sleight of hand. This 30-foot waterfall in Chestnut Ridge Park shelters one of geology’s strangest party tricks—a natural gas seep that can burn for long periods in a protected grotto, creating a scene that looks more like fantasy than Western New York reality.
Where Ancient Rock Becomes a Gas Station
Four-hundred-million-year-old shale formations fuel this geological oddity with an unusually rich gas mixture.
The Devonian-era Rhinestreet Shale lying 1,300 feet beneath your hiking boots contains organic matter that’s been cooking into natural gas for eons. Unlike typical methane seeps, this underground cocktail packs 35% ethane and propane—a composition that puzzled Indiana University researchers who studied the site in 2013.
The gas bubbles up through rock fissures, concentrating in the waterfall’s natural cave where overhanging stone protects the flame from wind and spray. You’ll smell it before you see it. That faint rotten-egg scent comes from hydrogen sulfide mixed with the escaping gas, turning your approach into a sensory treasure hunt…