One of the most popular National Parks in the U.S.A., that attracts a lot of tourists annually is the -impressive- Grand Canyon.
Let’s find out more about the Grand Canyon!
- The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States.
- The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long and up to 18 miles (29 km) wide.
- Also it attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet or 1,857 meters).
- The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation.
- President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area.
- He visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
- Nearly two billion years of Earth’s geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.
- Some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists.
- Despite that srecent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago.
- Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.
- 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 García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.
- Despite the common belief it is not the deepest canyon in the world.
- The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet plummets to a depth of 17,567 feet, making it more than 2 miles deeper than the Grand Canyon’s 6,093 feet. The Tibetan canyon is also about 30 miles longer than the Grand Canyon.
- The weather you’re experiencing could vary drastically depending on where you are in the Grand Canyon.
- The coldest, wettest weather station in the region is the Bright Angel Ranger Station on the North Rim, while the hottest (and one of the driest) is just 8 miles away at Phantom Ranch.
- No dinosaurs’ bones have ever been found there.
- The rock that makes up the canyon walls is vastly more ancient than the dinosaurs – about a billion years more ancient, in some cases- but the canyon itself probably didn’t form until after the dinosaurs were long gone.
- While the dinosaurs might have missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, lots of other fossils have been found that suggest other creatures frequented the location. They range from ancient marine fossils dating back 1.2 billion years to fairly recent land mammals that left their remains in canyon caves about 10,000 years ago.
- Prior to modern flood control measures, the Colorado River provided a uniquely difficult habitat for fish, with heavy silt, frequent floods, and temperatures ranging from extreme heat in summer to sub-freezing in winter.
- As a result, only eight fish species are native to the Grand Canyon.
- Six of them are found nowhere outside of the Colorado River.
- Supai Village is located at the base of the Grand Canyon within the Havasupai Indian Reservation.
- It is inaccessible by road and it has a population of just 208.
- It is the most remote community in the lower 48 states, and is the only place where mail is still delivered by pack mule.
- The Grand Canyon offers one of the most visible examples of a worldwide geological phenomenon known as the Great Unconformity, in which 250 million-year-old rock strata lie back-to-back with 1.2 billion-year-old rocks. What happened during the hundreds of millions of years between remains an unsolved mystery.
- The Hopi Tribe considers the Grand Canyon a gateway to the afterlife.
- There are an estimated 1,000 caves within the canyon, but only 335 have been recorded. Only one cave is open to the public.
- The Grand Canyon Pink Rattlesnake is only found in the Grand Canyon, and is one of six rattlesnake species that live within park boundaries.
