Grand Canyon Research Paper

Canyonlands National Park, immense amounts of wilderness and rock, is located at the heart of the Colorado Plateau (Canyonlands National Park-Geology). Millions of years have formed specific features to the rock and surrounding wilderness that make it so special. Throughout the park, you will find that the sedimentary rock has formed many features such as hundreds of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires. The Green and Colorado rivers have played a major role in the formation of many of these features. These rivers cut through the park forming two massive canyons. This further splits the park into three distinct zones. “Island in the Sky” sits to the north while “The Maze” sits off to the west and “The Needles” to the

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.

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.

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

Away from the glitz and glamour of the Strip, there is a hidden nature preservation called Red Rock Canyon. Red Rock is a large national park that contains many things to see, do and experience for people of all ages. You can also bring your dog on some hikes! Red Rock Canyon contains different shades of red and white large rock formations maxing at 1,000 feet tall. There is a long scenic route that circles around the inside of the park to carry you to different formations and trails. Of course, simply trying to describe this geological phenomenon with words does not do it justice. My earliest visit to Red Rock at 10 years old and my latest visit just this past weekend can always be explained with one word, exhilarating.

In the providence canyon you can see things you don't see everyday, for example the rare plumleaf azalea. The plumleaf azalea is a flower that is found only in soutwest Georgia and eastern Aladama. During July and August the canyon floor is filled with the flowers, it is the largest colony known in the world. Wildlife is also something that the people can see while at little grand canyon. The canyon has lots of wildlife with in it, many of the people who visit can see animals in the wild for them selves. People who hunt and send time in the woods much see lots of animals, as for others who work or don't have time little grand canyon would be a great vacation. Red foxes are not a comman animal to see in the time of day everyday. The little grand canyon offers the opertunity to see woodpeckers, white-tail deer, and red foxes, as you stroll through the canyon. Little grand canyon has cliffs that are more than 150 feet into the earth, with different varieties of sand. The cliffs have many types of sand, like sediment. silt, etc. The sand had been compacted for millions of years, to form what it is

Nearly 13,000 years ago, glaciers moved across the earth. In the Pacific Northwest they created many rivers, including the Columbia. The rock that the Grand Coulee Dam was built on was carved out by those glaciers creating a sturdy base of the dam. It is located in the rain-shadow of the Cascade Mountain Range in a shrub-steppe grassland, which results in very little rainfall and high temperatures. There have been many Native American tribes, including the Spokane, Sanpoli, Nespelem, Lakes, Colville and many others that have lived along the Columbia River and have relied on it for many of their day-to-day necessities (Columbia Basin Project 2015).

Wow! The colors you may see there are such as deep pumpkin orange, mustard orchre yellow, fiery red, sugar-white kaolin, pale pink, dusty lavender, and misty grey. Since the sand in this area is so soft, every time it rained the sand was washed by an erosion. That is how the rock formation started to form. When you visit take notice of how the different colors of sand are layered on top of each other like pages in a book. In the passages it stated how " million of years ago, this area was covered by ocean waters and over time different types of silt and sediment were deposited into deep layers of

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.”

The Coso Mountain Range is located at the intersection of the Great Basin and California culture area just above the eastern California desert. This region was left with arroyo walls, lava flows and pyroclastic boulders covered with petroglyphs of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images (127). Petroglyphs are images created by carving, pecking or incising images into rock surfaces. The most common rock art element found in the Coso Range is that of bighorn sheep (129). Although bighorn sheep images were common in other parts of the Great Basin and the Southwest, these elements were seen in far greater quantities in the Coso Range. The bighorn sheep image represents more than half of the 100,000 rock art elements discovered in this region. Many

The National Park Service material was both instructive and interesting. To learn the age of the oldest formation in Grand Canyon, the Elves Chasm Gneiss, was 1.84 billion years old was eye opening. That would mean these rocks formed a little under 3 billion years from the forming of the Earth.

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.

Have you ever wondered how the Grand Canyon was made? How it was carved? It had been carved by John Grand. He was the man that had carved that 277 mile canyon. He was a really strong man with big muscles. He had did it with just one lucky hammer.