Coming upon the Grand Canyon long ago, an old prospector is supposed to have said in amazement, “Something awful happened here.”
The something appears to have started happening some 17 million years ago, geologists concluded in a study reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science. If correct, that is at least 11 million years earlier than previous estimates.
By dating mineral deposits inside caves up and down the canyon walls, the geologists said they determined the water levels over time, as erosion carved out the mile-deep canyon as it is known today. They concluded that the canyon started from the west, then another formed from the east, and the two broke through and met as a single majestic rent in the earth some six million years ago.
Previous theories had posited six million years as the earliest age for the beginning of the entire Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.
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