Arizona - Grand Canyon: the view into the stunning gorge always offers new impressions@Powell Point
There are deeper and narrower valleys on earth, but none is as famous as the Grand Canyon. Superlatives extend over an enormous area here: unique rock formations, grandiose light moods and the mighty primitiveness of nature.
The Colorado River has carved enormous valleys into the rock. A river needs a surface to attack in order to create such deep canyons. The Colorado Plateau provides this surface.
40 to 50 million years ago, the land was uplifted by tectonic pressure, by the collision of two earth plates. Surprisingly, during the uplift, the rock layers of the plateau remained almost untouched and continued to be stored horizontally.
Until about five to six million years ago, the Colorado Plateau was a flat desert of sandstone. But then meltwater streams drove the first gullies into the land.
The rock layers lying horizontally were able to offer varying degrees of resistance to the force of the water. The softer layers gave way more quickly and undermined the hard rock layers above. They remained standing and formed almost vertical walls and overhangs. This created the famous stepped slopes that characterize the Grand Canyon.
Arizona - Grand Canyon: the view into the stunning gorge always offers new impressions@Powell Point
There are deeper and narrower valleys on earth, but none is as famous as the Grand Canyon. Superlatives extend over an enormous area here: unique rock formations, grandiose light moods and the mighty primitiveness of nature.
The Colorado River has carved enormous valleys into the rock. A river needs a surface to attack in order to create such deep canyons. The Colorado Plateau provides this surface.
40 to 50 million years ago, the land was uplifted by tectonic pressure, by the collision of two earth plates. Surprisingly, during the uplift, the rock layers of the plateau remained almost untouched and continued to be stored horizontally.
Until about five to six million years ago, the Colorado Plateau was a flat desert of sandstone. But then meltwater streams drove the first gullies into the land.
The rock layers lying horizontally were able to offer varying degrees of resistance to the force of the water. The softer layers gave way more quickly and undermined the hard rock layers above. They remained standing and formed almost vertical walls and overhangs. This created the famous stepped slopes that characterize the Grand Canyon.