Is the Grand Canyon older than its rocks?

The oldest rocks exposed in the canyon are ancient, 1,840 million years old. Conversely, the canyon itself is geologically young, having been carved in the last 6 million years.



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The Grand Canyon has been carved, over millions of years, as the Colorado River cuts through the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau is a large area that was elevated through tectonic uplift millions of years ago. Geologists debate the age of the canyon itself—it may be between 5 million and 70 million years old.

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Some scientists believe that the Grand Canyon is 70 million years old. Others contend that the natural wonder is only between five and six million years old. Both are right. Scientists examined rocks from the Grand Canyon with the so-called thermo chronology method.

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Sixty million years ago, the Rocky Mountains and the entire Colorado Plateau, which the Grand Canyon is part of, rose up from tectonic activity. After the top layers of rock (green) eroded away, the Colorado River grew powerful and began to cut its way through the ancient rock, leaving the stunning canyon we see today.

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The Grand Canyon has been carved, over millions of years, as the Colorado River cuts through the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau is a large area that was elevated through tectonic uplift millions of years ago. Geologists debate the age of the canyon itself—it may be between 5 million and 70 million years old.

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Impress Your Friends With These Fun Facts!*
  • We don't really know how old it is. ...
  • Grand Canyon creates its own weather! ...
  • There are no dinosaur bones in the canyon. ...
  • But there are lots of other fossils in the area. ...
  • There's a town down in the canyon. ...
  • We're missing 950 million years worth of rocks!


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The composition (sandstone) and presence of stromatolites indicate that this area was previously a very shallow sea. The rock layers in the Grand Canyon Supergroup have been tilted, whereas the other rocks above this set are horizontal.

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The oldest known rock in Grand Canyon, known as the Elves Chasm Gneiss, is located deep in the canyon's depths as part of the Vishnu Basement Rocks and clocks in at an ancient 1.84 billion years old.

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The mystery of the Great Unconformity What's tricky about the Grand Canyon is that the rocks in its walls seem to be missing a big part of the picture. In 1869, a man named John Wesley Powell observed that several layers of rock that should've been in the Canyon walls were not present.

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One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Grand Canyon is an unbelievable spectacle of nature. It is a great, huge slash in the surface of the earth - 217 miles long, 4 to 18 miles wide and a mile deep, with the Colorado River flowing at the bottom.

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Largest canyons The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon (or Tsangpo Canyon), along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, is regarded by some as the deepest canyon in the world at 5,500 metres (18,000 ft). It is slightly longer than the Grand Canyon in the United States.

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Over the centuries, the rocks, dirt and silt the Colorado brought down from the Grand Canyon and the rest of its vast drainage basin either settled on what are now the banks of the river or formed an immense delta at its mouth.

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09:41 And, right at the bottom, you find the granddaddy of Grand Canyon rocks, granodiorite. This rock is more than 4,000 feet below the rim of the canyon, and it's one of the oldest rocks of them all.

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The Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon in Tibet, a region of southwestern China, was formed over millions of years by the Yarlung Zangbo River. This canyon is the deepest in the world—at some points extending more than 5,300 meters (17,490 feet) from top to bottom.

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Geologists date this sandstone to 550 million years ago and explain the folding as a result of pressure from shifting faults underneath. But to Mr. Vail, the folds suggest the Grand Canyon was carved 4,500 years ago by the great global flood described in Genesis as God's punishment for humanity's sin.

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