Video
Walking the Trail of Time with Ranger Lindsay
Transcript
The Grand Canyon has some very old rock. The oldest rock, way down at the bottom of the canyon, is about 1.8 billion years old. The youngest rock, the layer I'm standing on right now is about 270 million years old. That's much older than the dinosaurs. It's hard to conceptualize these 'illions, and relate them to human timescales but a timeline can help. The trail of time is a geology timeline exhibit along the rim trail between the Yavapai Geology Museum and Grand Canyon Village. There's a time accelerator trail here at the beginning that helps you make the transition between human timescales of years, decades, centuries, to geologic timescales of millions and billions of years. For most of the trail, one step equals one million years. You can start from today, at the Yavapai Geology Museum, and work your way back in time through Grand Canyon's history. Along the way you can see and touch some of the rocks from the many varied layers of the Grand Canyon. These rocks were collected by the river, brought up for display and then placed at their birthdays - or their ages. The canyon itself is a geologically young canyon. It was carved into these very old rocks over only the last five or six million years. That's five steps in a Trail of Time that's over a mile long
Description
The Trail of Time is an interpretive walking trail that focuses on Grand Canyon's vistas and rocks, encouraging visitors to ponder, explore, and understand the magnitude of geologic time and the stories told by canyon rock layers and landscapes.
Duration
1 minute, 57 seconds
Credit
Lindsay Brandt, Laura Crossey
Date Created
04/24/2020
Copyright and Usage Info