How the grand canyon was formed
Everyone knows the Grand Canyon, but does everyone know how it was formed? Arizona's own Grand Canyon is over a million acres, 277 miles in length, and is 10 miles in width. Canyons are formed by rivers eroding a plateau, by running over a tall, flat ground for a long time to where eventually it would create the canyon we see when it takes the little pieces of sediment and dumps it somewhere else, like the ocean. The river that runs over the Grand Canyon is called the Colorado River, and that river dumps into the Pacific Ocean. So what's the overall big picture of the process of how it was formed? Rocks are weathered into sediments and are eroded and then deposited in a basin and can form sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary rocks can form on top of each other and make rock layers that become a plateau. If a river runs over that plateau for a long time, it will keep eroding the sediment and make the canyons we see today. The three major types of sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon are limestone, sandstone, and shale. To learn more about these rocks, go to the section on sedimentary rocks and pick your own, or click the button below to direct you to the main Sedimentary Rocks page.