November 5, 2010
The Grand Canyon is much younger than the rocks it contains. The canyon itself is somewhere between 5 and 55 million years old, but the oldest rocks in the bottom are 4 billion years old.
Stories this photo appears in:
Grand Canyon mystery
Geologists debate the age of the planet’s deepest canyon, with the answer to ancient riddles hanging in the balance
So I’m sitting on a river-smoothed swirl of Vishnu Schist in the bottom of the Grand Canyon trying to reset my imagination as the Colorado River roars past.
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