The Grand Canyon Arizona is a natural wonder of the world at
some points it appears like a magic city of rock, with temples, towers, and
castles of dazzling colors. One of the most amazing things about it is that the
Grand Canyon was made by a river. The waters of the Colorado River cut out this
great gorge in the course of thousands of years.
when you consider that is was cut out of solid rock in many
places, you begin to appreciate the tremendous force of these waters. Even now,
year by year, the rushing Colorado continues to cut deeper into the bottom of
the gorge. In certain places, the gorge of the Grand Canyon is more than a mile
deep, and it from 4 to 18 miles wide.
As the river cut deep into the plateau to from the Canyon,
it laid bare on the rock walls of the Canyon the story of hundreds of millions
of years of the earth’s history. Down at the bottom of the gorge, beside the
river, ancient crystalline rock is exposed. This its buried remnant of an
ancient mountain range which was folded back on itself and worn down by weather
and water.
The rise and fall of this mountain range millions of years
ago is revealed only by the erosion of the Grand Canyon. On the base of this buried
mountains range rest beds of quartzite, sandstone, and limestone. They were
formed over the years as ocean waters from the east and from the west flooded
the section, and as whole mountain ranges rose and disappeared.
Prof of the fact that great seas once rushed over these rocks
is to be found in the fossils that turn up here. There are fossil remains of
seaweed, sea shells, and fish.
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