BBC Documentary: Geological History Of The Grand Canyon

To begin, the mouth of the canyon features a hilly landscape with scars from landslides created from the uplifting of land by the Wasatch Fault. The fault, responsible for the creation of the Wasatch Mountains 25 million years ago, is a normal fault (Eldredge, 2014). Unlike some faults, vertical movement of the terrain is limited and slippage only occurs every several hundred or thousand years. Signs of the fault at work can be seen through the mouth of the canyon with the orange Tintic Quartzite which is dated back to the Cambrian Age. Layered beneath the quartzite is tillite from the Precambrian Age. To the west and separate from the Quartzite and tillite by the Wasatch Vault are limestone sections from the Missippian Age. (Rigby, Hintze, 1968, pg 23).

So you now know how sedimentary rocks are formed and how the Colorado River majorly eroded all the rock creating canyons. But here comes the million dollar question: where did all the rocks come from? The answer to that question is The Continental Drift. The Earth's continents are not fixed in place, but rather float on a sea of molten rock, meaning that they move around quite a bit. Over 250 million years, that “quite a bit” can turn into land masses moving thousands of miles. Moreover, the Earth is made up of 20 Tectonic plates. Seven of these plates are very large and consist of entire continents or sea floors. The plate that the Grand Canyon is located on is called “The North American Plate”. At one time, this plate was considerably further south and consequently had a very different climate than

Evidence in the Mosaic Canyon; however, do suggest that the area was covered by a warm

It divides the flow of water between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. So the Colorado River results from the divide that forces the snow of the Colorado Rockies to flow towards the Pacific Ocean. This geographical journey then continues into the boundary of Utah where it heads towards Arizona. This is where this water created, by way of pushing, biting, and carving its way into the Earth for millions of years, the massive canyon called the Grand Canyon. After this natural wonder, the river flows into the boundary of Nevada, then makes it journey into California. The end of the river passes through Baja California before making its finale of fluid flow in Sonora Mexico.

Arizona became the 48th state February 14, 1912. This state is very populated. It has over 5 million people. Arizona has something that is known as the four corners. One person can be in four states at one time. You can stand in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Arizona leads the nation in copper production. The amount of copper on the roof of the capitol building is equivalent to 4,800,000 pennies. In 1953 after the copper mines closed there was as few as 50 people in Arizona.

There is an abundant amount of history buried inside the walls of Little Cottonwood Canyon. This mountain range has existed since the Ice Age which was roughly 14,000-30,000 years ago. Consequently, the Ice Age and Lake Bonneville created a Delta at the base of the canyon and a long creek that carves its way down the mountain (Wilkerson 1987). It also created Cirques; which is a crescent formed slope on the faces of the mountains (Richmond 1964). Little Cottonwood Canyon also lies on an active fault, the Wasatch fault, and it has been active for the past 15 million years. This fault in the last 6000 years has had around 19 major earthquakes that instigated a large movement of about 6-10 feet of

Mesa Verde National Park on the Colorado Plateau contains many geological aspects of interest, including its sedimentary rock layers, its canyons, its alcoves utilized by ancient people and how these alcoves were formed. Mesa Verde National Park is located in the southwest corner of Colorado, close to the Four Corners area, on top of a high mesa overlooking the Mancos River (Harris et al. 2004). The park, covering 81 square miles, consists of several main sedimentary formations that are characteristic to the park (Encyclopedia Britannica 2015). Canyons are carved into the sedimentary rock, with the cave dwellings found high on their steep walls. These dwellings are an especially unique aspect to the Mesa Verde National Park, and are built out of large alcoves. The alcoves were produced by weathering and erosion of the sedimentary rock type. To better understand how these alcoves formed, we must understand the geology of Mesa Verde National Park and how it has developed over history.

A description of the grand canyon rock layers would include the Colorado River running at the bottom of the inner gorge with flats on both sides which consist of tapeat sandstone layers. There is also the Vishnu Complex, consisting of rocks that have been changed by heat and are buried at the lowest layers. These are tilted and are called the “Grand Canyon Supergroup” the Grand Canyon supergroups are at least 12,000 ft in thickness. These rocks or (the “Inner Gorge”) are usally steep and narrow with hard deep cuts in the lower tilted layers which raise above sea level.

Around 650 A.D., the Mesa Verdean peoples initiated construction of apartment-style homes, termed by Spanish explorers as pueblos. The Puebloan architecture is original in that it utilized the local stone and mud deposits of the region to maintain the structural integrity of their burgeoning developments. As this community evolved into the twelfth century, Mesa Verdeans further integrated the geology of their environment into their lifestyles by building homes, known as cliff dwellings, within the naturally formed alcoves of Mesa Verde. By the thirteenth century, the Mesa Verdeans vacated this region due to severe droughts and subsequent social instability. Despite the later abandonment of their cliff dwellings, it is clear that the geology of Mesa Verde National Park impacted the lives of the Ancestral Puebloans significantly. The following sections provide detailed information regarding the rock formations that make up the geological

Our hike will start here, at the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We will go all the way to the bottom of the canyon. But first, a description of this area. The Grand Canyon is one on the most visited and studies sites for geologists on Earth. There are almost forty major sedimentary rock layers exposed in the Grand Canyon. Some of these rocks layers are two hundred million years old or two billion years old. Most of the sediment that makes up the rocks was deposited by oceans and seas, which now, are long gone. We know this because there are many fossils and and other records on large bodies of water in the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is found in the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau is lifted almost two miles, or four and a fifth kilometers. It started to lift up seventy-five million years ago. This started a mountain-building period of time called the Laramide orogeny. During this period, the Rocky Mountains were created. The main types of rocks found in the Grand Canyon are limestone, siltstone, shale, and sandstone. Many of the layers are made up of limestone. Some examples of these are the Kaibab Limestone, the Redwall Limestone the Temple Butte Limestone, and the Muav

The sedimentary layers of rock and soil are used by the evolutionists to argue that the layers of rock would have gradually built up over millions of years. Paul D. Ackerman in his book, It’s a Young World After All: Exciting Evidences for Recent Creation, argues that if it took millions of years to build the rock layers found in the Grand Canyon, then scientists should be able to encounter countless numbers of meteors. “With the passage of vast amounts of evolutionary time, these accumulating meteorites would be incorporated into the geologic column, and there should be many of them contained in the rock layers today.” Geologists should be coming across chunks or at least pieces of meteors when digging or observing the layers. However, they do not; which means that there must have been a catastrophic event that laid down the geologic column quickly. This would explain why there are not any indications of meteors in the geological column. Ackerman ends the chapter with a clear cut conclusion: “What do the data show? A clear result in favor of a recent creation. One survey of the literature a few years ago failed to turn up a single case of a meteorite being found in the geologic column. The meteorite clock reads clearly to the effect that the earth is not very old.”

Weathering, geologic processes such as erosion, and climatic shifts allow for this immense desert ecosystem to continually evolve and change which has taken place for millions of years. This geologically wealthy environment is composed of alternating flat-lying layers of soft and hard deposits of mostly sedimentary rocks. Interchanging slopes and cliffs along the landscape helped form these layers of rock which can be seen fully exposed in areas of the mesa. Deposition of this landscape mainly occurred during the Permian, Pennsylvanian, Triassic and Jurassic time periods. The assortment of warm hues of sandstone were produced by varying levels of iron oxide minerals during formation.

The final piece of evidence for a worldwide flood is the Grand Canyon. An article describing the Grand Canyon states, “The general scientific consensus, updated at a 2010 conference, holds that the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon beginning 5 million to 6 million years ago.” (Zimmermann, 2013) However, it is obvious that the Colorado river could not have carved the Grand Canyon. It is much too small to carve such an enormous monument, and it shows a surprising lack of erosion for being millions of years old. (The Grand Canyon, n.d.) One problem with evolutionists’ theory is the numerous side canyons formed just as deep with no visible water source. (Brown, 1995-2013) Also, why are there no other Grand Canyons around the world that were created with larger and more powerful rivers? (Brown, 1995-2013) A massive amount of around eight hundred cubic miles of sediments were excavated from the Grand Canyon, yet the Colorado River’s delta, the section at the mouth of the river where sediments eroded by the river are deposited, contains less than one percent of this material. (Brown, 1995-2013) So where did it all go? A worldwide flood is the most plausible explanation. As the crust buckled and shifted, the water from the flood drained off of high levels into the ocean basins and any low places. (Brown, 1995-2013) The Colorado Plateau was lifted around six thousand two hundred feet, carrying two large post-Flood lakes with it, the Grand Lake and Hopi Lake. (Brown,

The Grand Canyon has plenty of volcanic rocks near the bottom and the top. ICR, Institute for Creative Research, has been involved in a project for years to date these volcanic rocks. this study has come a long way to show that many of the Grand Canyon strata could have formed rapidly, and that the erosion of the Canyon by the Colorado River has not been going on for millions of years.

The landscape is stark, but the beauty startling. The expanses seem to welcome, even beg you to explore. It’s a call you are unlikely to be able to resist (assuming it’s not scorchingly hot and you are not hungover from a big night in moments-away Las Vegas), nor is it one you should. In front of you is one of America’s grand spectacles, Red Rock Canyon.