Hot take: I thought the Grand Canyon was just a big hole until I saw the layers up close

I was in Arizona last month and took a hike down the Bright Angel Trail. Seeing those red and white stripes in the rock, stacked like a giant cake, really got me. It hit me that each stripe is a whole different world from millions of years ago. How do geologists even start to figure out what happened in each one?

3 comments

3 Comments

adam_adams8d ago

Yeah, that's the real mind-bender. Do they mostly work from the type of rock itself, or are they looking for fossils in each layer to tell the story?

riley_schmidt9d ago

Ever wonder if the colors would look different under a full moon? I did a night hike at a smaller canyon once and the whole vibe changed.

kelly_west748d ago

Totally get what you mean about the layers, it's wild. That reminds me of a trip where we saw these weird, twisted rock folds in Utah, looked like a giant messed up rug. Makes you think about all the pushing and shoving the earth does over time, like what @adam_adams was getting at with the rock types telling a story. Honestly, half the time I just stare at it and my brain can't really process the scale of it all.