The Mighty Colorado

by Jon Burch Photography

Title

The Mighty Colorado

Artist

Jon Burch Photography

Medium

Photograph - Digital Capture

Description

This image of the Colorado River and the Arizona Grand Canyon was made from Pima Point along the rim rock trail.

The Grand Canyon was carved by the Colorado River. It is contained within and managed by Grand Canyon National Park, the Hualapai Tribal Nation, and the Havasupai Tribe. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.

It is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While the specific geologic processes and timing that formed the Grand Canyon are the subject of debate by geologists, recent evidence suggests that the Colorado River established its course through the canyon at least 17 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River continued to erode and form the canyon to its present-day configuration.

For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site and made pilgrimages to it. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was Garc'a L'pez de C'rdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.

The Canyon is part of the Colorado River basin which has developed over the past 40 million years. A recent study places the origins of the canyon beginning about 17 Million years ago. Geologically the Grand Canyon is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that is beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.

In perspective, the big canyon of the Colorado is a big fissure in the Colorado Plateau that exposes uplifted Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata, and is also one of the 19 distinct physiographic sections of the Colorado Plateau province. It is not the deepest canyon in the world (Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal is far deeper), nor the widest (Capertee Valley in Australia is about one half mile wider and longer than Grand Canyon); however, the Grand Canyon is known for its visually overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape.

There is however, one other that is much, much larger. In 1971, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a probe called Mariner 9 that went into orbit around the planet Mars. Mars is about one half the size of the Earth, yet it contains the largest known features in our solar system including the largest canyon called Valles Marineris, named for the Mariner spacecraft that discovered it. Valles Marineris is huge compared to the Grand Canyon, it is so wide (more than 120 miles) and so deep (23,000 feet) and so long (2500 miles) it would make the Grand Canyon on Earth look like a mere cat scratch. Go figure...

Image copyright 2014 Jon Burch Photography

Uploaded

February 26th, 2014

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