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Grand Canyon Geology
In the interest of educational expression, we are pleased to provide this video:
ORDER YOUR OWN permanent geology posters by clicking on these thumbnails:
Reviewed and approved for accuracy by George Billingsly, geologist, USGS. Three years of research to develop illustrations and information. Home school approved.
The finished poster... used by river runners, guides and souvenir hunters.
Drawn to scale, this poster features a map of the rapids and more significant landmarks during your trip through the Grand Canyon! Too detailed to show in this small picture. Perfect for anyone planning to go on a Colorado River Rafting Trip or it is a perfect souvenir of your trip. NOT available in retail stores. nazSTUFF.com EXCLUSIVE.
Additional reading
Erosive forces continue to shape the Grand Canyon today, millions of years after it began to form. Normal channel erosion alone, however, cannot explain the many kilometers that separate its rims. The strongest explanation holds that the major factor in the widening of the canyon has been activity from tributary drainage systems -- the side streams, rivulets, and gullies outside the main river channel. The greatest erosive force in these tributaries is the fast-moving landslide called a debris flow.
The history of the multicolored, horizontal layers of sedimentary rock that rise above the Inner Gorge to the rims and also found beyond the park to the north and east is a fascinating story of changing environments and evolving life forms. From about 545 million years ago until about 80 million years ago, the region now known as the Colorado Plateau was often near or below sea level. Oceans transgressed and retreated, swamps were covered by sandy deserts, the sea returned, and life evolved from simple marine invertebrates to fish, sharks, and reptiles.
When paleontologists compare the meager fossil record in the Grand Canyon Supergroup to the abundant fossils in the Tapeats Sandstone, the oldest of the Paleozoic rocks, they are astonished at an apparent "explosion" of life forms. About the only fossils seen in the older rocks are rounded colonies of limestone secreting cyanobacteria (sometimes called blue-green algae) known as stromatolites. Yet the Tapeats and the overlying Bright Angel Shale record an advancing ocean teeming with an amazing diversity of complex, multi-celled organisms -- marine worms, brachiopods or lamp shells, and trilobites, to name a few. What transpired during the Great Unconformity time span?
Biologists speculate that the giant evolutionary step to multi-celled organisms could not take place until oxygen became a major component of the atmosphere AND be dissolved into the ocean's water. Sometime during the Precambrian era, organic compounds transformed into the first living cells, termed prokaryotes. These single cells were types of bacteria and cyanobacteria living in a world lacking free oxygen. However, the cyanobacteria practiced photosynthesis -- the conversion of water and carbon dioxide into organic compounds for growth with oxygen being a by-product. Over a couple of billion years, oxygen slowly built up in the atmosphere. Lightning caused some of the oxygen to combine into ozone. This ozone layer filters out much of the sun's harmful ultraviolet light. The abundance of oxygen, the filtering effect of the ozone and other changes to the environment set the stage for organisms that could be aerobic, the oxygen-dependent eukaryotes.
Eukaryotes are membranous cells that reproduce by the division of a nucleus, the storeroom for genetic material. Prokaryotes reproduce simple by duplicating themselves into two equal parts -- a very limited way of evolving new species. But with the eukaryotes continually shuffling their DNA, the possible permutations were limitless. Just as the last layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup were being deposited, complex multi-celled organisms developed for the first time. Unfortunately, in the Grand Canyon region, the Great Unconformity was a time of erosion rather than deposition so no fossil record occurs until the later marine Tapeats Sandstone. By then, an incredible array of new life had evolved.
Climbing up through the Paleozoic-age rocks, you find fossil marine burrows, trilobites, fern impressions, reptile tracks, brachiopods, shark's teeth, as well as, other clues to past environments, like ripple marks and mud cracks. The walls of the Grand Canyon reveal earth history to careful observers.
Inside Grand Canyon
How the Grand Canyon Was Shaped Over Time by Ranger Joseph Felgenhauer, Grand Canyon Ranger
How was it made, and why is it here in Northern Arizona and no where else? These are questions that visitors often ask me. Isn’t it human nature to wonder about our planets early beginnings?
In this Ranger Minute, I will present one perspective; I am going to give you a simple way to remember how the Grand
Canyon was shaped over time. All you have to remember is D. U. D. E.
The first D stands for Deposition. The top most four thousand feet of rock consist of sedimentary rocks. These sedimentary layers were deposited in ecosystems far different than what we see here today.
The tide came in and water covered this land and deposited sediment, lots of tiny particles, oceans receded and wind blown sands were deposited, over time the waters returned and more sediments were deposited, many types, some thick layers, some thin, different colors too, some purple, some tan and over time these sediments solidified to form rocks.
Many of these sediments were deposited under water.
U stands for Uplift. The Grand Canyon is on the second largest plateau on planet earth, the Colorado plateau. This is an area around the four corners region of the United States. You can not have a grand canyon unless the rocks are lifted up high and flat.
The second D stands for Down cutting. About 5 million years ago along came the Colorado River. The Colorado River, this river is singularly responsible for cutting down into the Colorado plateau thereby revealing millions of years of the earth's history in the layers of these rock walls.
E stands for Erosion, What kind of erosion? Water, Rainfall and the freezing and thawing of snow and ice cracks the rocks, breaking them off and - Gravity – urges all of this erosional debris downhill and down river, widening the canyon and revealing this stair step topography we see here today.
More Info on our BLOG