My Friend and I have a Disagreement about how the Grand Canyon was formed?

Question

My buddy says he saw a National Geographic Show that said the Grand Canyon was formed in 5 days from a great surge of water , I told him he was crazy that it was formed by glaciers millions of years ago , help us with ths disagreement and also supply an informative link to back up your answer , Best one 10 points !!

Thank You !

Answer 1

Strictly speaking, neither of you are correct. The vast majority of geologists and other scientists who have studied the canyon believe that it was caused by the erosion of the Colorado River over a period of several million years. While wind, volcanism and ice (other than glaciers) did help, the primary agent was the river itself.

The reason that the river cut so deep here (as opposed to other rivers) is because of the Colorado Plateau - an area that was uplifted (the canyon is at 7,000 feet elevation) due to plate tectonics. The combination of the land rising up and the water cutting down accelerated the cutting (similar to pushing a block of wood into a band saw).

Anyone who has been to Alaska or Glacier National Park knows that glaciers tend to carve out wide U-shaped valleys (the Grand Canyon has a very narrow bottom). Also glaciers are formed by gravity pulling large ice flows down off a mountain or other slope while there are no large mountains or other slopes that are large or steep enough near the mouth of the canyon.

The flood theory, is of course, from Christian fundamentalists whose beliefs dictate that world can be no more than 10,000 years old and thus are forced to discredit or reinterpret any scientific evidence to the contrary. Since the Supreme Court ruling that creationism-based young earth theories are religous belief and thus can not be taught in school science classes, they have tried to dress up their beliefs in scientific-sounding words and be creating fake 'institutes' (such as the bogus Discovery Institute) to make it sound like science and by-pass the laws. They also try to claim that recent discoveries have caused a big debate about the canyon and the earth's age amoung geologists - an outright lie as anyone who has studied the vast majority of recent geologic reports and publications can atest.

Make no mistake about it, the vast majority of scientists - including the majority of Christian scientists - believe the canyon is millions of years old and base this on a wide range of evidence from many different disciplines verified in dozens of scientific studies conducted over multiple decades.

You are right to ask for documentation and proof. Probably the top science-based books to cover canyon formation are the following:

"Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery" by Wayne Ranney.

"Grand Canyon Geology" edited by Stanley Beus and Michael Morales (this is a collection of recent geologic studies on the canyon).

"Colorado River Origin and Evolution" edit by Richard Young and Earle Spamer

All of the above books (written and edited by trained geologists with extensive backgrounds in canyon studies) agree that the canyon was carved by the river over millions of years (although scientists are still studying and debating the exact series of events and changes in the river route that led to the current situation).

As for websites (from scientifically credible organizations):
National Park Service:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/geologicformations.htm

The entire contents of the Colorado River Origin and Evolution book can be viewed online at:
http://www.grandcanyon.org/booksmore/booksmore_epublications.asp

Answer 2

Two forces are at work. The Colorado river and it's tributaries are eroding the river bed. At the same time, the surrounding plateau is being uplifted by tectonic action. Imagine if you held a knife with one hand and slowly raised a cake up towards it with the other. The knife doesn't have to move to make a deep cut in the cake is it rises. This is essentially what is happening in the Grand Canyon. The river is more or less stationary but provides a cutting/eroding action while the earth around it rises up. The result of the tectonic and erosive forces revealed hundreds of millions of years of the earth's history in the sedimentary layers. This is a big part of what makes the Grand Canyon unique. It's more than just its size and majesty, it provides a window into that past not available anywhere else.

Answer 3

Your buddy watched a different show that was explaining how some of the sediment found in the banks of the grand canyons got there not how the the grand canyons created. I'd watched that show myself and it doesn't said otherwise. The national Geographic society can give you more details on this regards. Check their site.

Answer 4

The truth is that no one knows for sure though there are some pretty good guesses. chances are that a number of processes combined to create the views seen in todays Grand Canyon. The most powerful force to have an impact on the Grand Canyon is erosion, primarily by water (and ice) and second by wind. Other forces that contributed to the Canyon's formation are the course of the Colorado River itself, vulcanism, continental drift and slight variations in the earths orbit which in turn causes variations in seasons and climate.

Answer 5

I think the Grand Canyon was formed by a river, that over time, eroded the land and formed the Grand Canyon. I'm not sure which one of you won, but you can figure that.

Answer 6

I am positive that is was carved out by the Colorado River over hundereds of thousands of years of erosion. I've been to the Canyon several times and if I'm wrong than so is the information at the National Park for three different years. Share the acid!

Answer 7

The Grand Canyon was formed over million of years my the colorado river. After many years of running through the rock, the rock began to wear away. little by little. Somthing about the kind of rock in that area made it more susseptable to errosion and so as the mellina passed the path that the river cut drew deeper and deeper. It is now over a mile deep and still growing, athough very slowly.

I can't give you a link because my info came from informatinal programs and books and info i gathered from visting the place three times.

So all in all you are correct.

Answer 8

The whole planet was covered by water. Parts froze other parts didn't. The parts that froze reinstated it's self so erosion could eliminate the weak spots and leave the unfrozen parts still able to hold together. It was the long freeze that decided what would still be there after the thaw.

Answer 9

That was not National Geographic. Your friend probably saw that on the Bible Channel or something - that's the idea that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood - which never happened. There is no evidence for a global flood, and the Grand Canyon CERTAINLY isn't evidence for a global flood. It was created over millions of years by water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon#Geology

Answer 10

You're both wrong, It was a river that took millions of years to form the canyon.