How Was the Grand Canyon Formed?
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- čas přidán 26. 08. 2024
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It's a long story…
↓ More info and sources below ↓
How do you make a Grand Canyon?
Thanks to Mike from PBS Idea Channel and Jamin from PBS Game/Show for hanging out at the Grand Canyon with me!
/ pbsideachannel
/ pbsgameshow
Special thanks to Raymond Schillinger for great camera work!
I was in Arizona recently for Phoenix Comic-Con, and had the amazing pleasure of seeing one of Earth's greatest natural wonders… the Grand Canyon. More than a mile deep, and several miles across, it just defies belief. But I couldn't help but think, the Colorado River down at the bottom isn't that big. How did it cut a canyon so massive? How old is the Grand Canyon?
Here's its story
www.nps.gov/grc...
Have an idea for an episode or an amazing science question you want answered? Leave a comment or check us out at the links below!
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It's Okay To Be Smart is written and hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.DFollow me on Twitter: @jtotheizzoe
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Joe Hanson - Creator/Host/Writer… and camera for this one!
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer, Spotzen IncKate Eads - Producer
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Theme music: "Ouroboros" by Kevin MacLeod
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Stock images from Shutterstock, stock footage from Videoblocks
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Videos and pictures don't do it justice.. seeing it up close was something else.. I can't explain the feeling I got
1:11 - So it was him who stole our TARDIS!
Doctor Who Don't look at me. I'm too busy chasing Moriarty in my own timeline.
+Sherlock ha ha. What are the chances of this? 😂
That Doomsday will come? I'm curious about that too.
Doctor Who where do you live?
Doctor Who in the movie
Definitely didn't recognize Jamin or Mike at first. That was great!
scott you watch this channel?
didn't see this coming.
hello universe Really? I thought I made it clear how much I love PBS Digital Studios. Plus, my passion is learning about anything and everything I can. Seems like it should have been expected that I'd be here. Haha
Marlon Moreno Thanks!
That was such a random cameo... Love it.
I'm still curious as to what factors made the results of the grand canyon so drastic compared to OTHER canyons, as well as why not all rivers seem to have made canyons.
I hope you have learned something about it in the previous 7 years. If not, see my comment.
You are asking too broad of a question. What do you mean by "drastic"? Which part? As is the answer could simply be because the canyon is large so it looks so "drastic"
@@StopFear dude question is 7 years old bro
There must be a fault where the river lies at the bottom of the canyon, and the north and south rim are part of different tectonic plates that separated.
Maybe that's why the north rim is much higher.
(?)
Most canyons form surrounded by mountains, the grand canyon is surrounded by mostly flat land which is why it's so spectacular to see. There is a fault somewhere along the canyon that raised the northern rim up, not part of different tectonic plates though
thanks for the amazing info. I can now throw this fact to my friends! I dream of visiting it.... in the mean time I also came across James Asquith's vlog on Grand Canyon and it was amazing!
Can you please do a video on this topic!!! I was wondering how, why, ants have wars it sounds cool.
:(
i know you've probably watched it, but just in case kurzgesagt has a video on it
@@genthefrog18 i did not know about this channel and i am eatching a couple videos on it after this one. Looks like they are gonna get a new subscriber! Thank you :)
Sherlock in a TARDIS is the stuff of fan fiction.
there was an episode of Doctor Who where the 11th Doctor dressed up as sherlock
I still don't get why this massive erosion only happened there. Did I miss something ?
Frederic Bessette I do not know american geology that well, but the general process is often the same. When you get a canyon shape, i's genraly thanks to one or two layer of rocks. This layer was for some reason a lot more resistant to erosion. Most of this layer was left inatct, but in some places (like in a river bed) the eorsion was important enough to erode it , water suddenly reached the soft layers hidden beneath it. From there, the stream cuts trough the soft sedimentary rocks, until it reaches another hard layer.
When you look at the profile, every plateau represents a layer of harder rock. The last very important thing is the geometry of those layers. They have to be horizontal, otherwise the erosion would occur on different layers at the same time.
Erosion didn't only happened there, but the specific context of the region gave birth to this canyon. If you have a more general context, you juste end up with a plain, not very exciting...
ty
Frederic Bessette I wonder the same
Frederic Bessette Well, it was mostly chance that decided where, As the snow from the Rocky's melted, it flowed down following the lay of the land all the way to the ocean. Then as the ground arose more and more, the little river cut deeper and deeper, wind and rain erosion making it wider and wider.
***** What your saying is exactly what the video said, but there's snow melting and erosion everywhere, and the river isn't that big.
Marc o'polo's explanation is what I was looking for.
i love the name of this channel "Its ok to be smart". thanks for that lol(also ty this really help me learn about grand canyons!)
Lmao there is only one Grand Canyon
LOL, that cameo!
I actually had that happen to me before: Some tourist was asking where this ginormous mall was. I just pointed behind them and they went "Oooooooh".
my grandson had to watch this for school
How does a canyon become grand? When Joe Hanson goes to it.
Also, did you shoot all those time lapses? If so how.
I did shoot those time lapses! And if I told you how, I'd have to, well… you know.
czcams.com/video/DZ4eVMd3_PE/video.html
Because it has layers of rocks and the river Colorado is grand . Also, it is one of the seven natural wonders of the world in the united states. So that s why is grand and the seven natural wonders are unbelievably beautiful so that's why.
There truly is so much natural beauty in this world.
My students enjoyed this informative video.
There are many nice theories. Erosion is an ongoing process, creating new geological forms. It is more likely that the receding waters after the Great Deluge some 4,200 years ago (if we can rely on the biblical account) formed the Grand Canyon, and that debris and sediment of other periods (broken mollusks and marine organisms) had collected in the canyon's strata, which gives to it the appearance of being 6 million years. Softer earth was swept away with the inundating waters, until one was left with the granite bedrock (otherwise known as the Vishnu Basement Rocks). Remember that the entire earth was once covered with water, which explains why they found fish fossils (or else sea shells) on top of Pikes Peak.
The flood of Noah's time created it. God created it.
I love how you said "here's an idea" before spinning Mike around to see the canyon. Classic. Nice cameo by him and Jamin.
Was it planned though
I am a true Whovian, and good job on using the good time tracks.
As recent as 80 million years ago. lol, Oh yeah, I remember seeing that on the news. Great video.
Why do people always ignore the actual start of the canyon? It starts along a mountain range. There once was a massive lake in there. The water started by flowing over the low point of the mountain range and once the flow lowers the low point it just cuts through rock as it drains the lake.
big huge flood ripped the geological layers , it was a very quick process
lol "here's an idea." Thanks for the Easter egg!
My students loved this video. We want to visit the Grand Canyon soon!
now can i tell you my fantasy how the grand canyons were made
0:26 that looks like the start of yt rewind 2019
Actually, a break in a natural dam and a flood of water eroded the land in a short time.
Specially after the end of ice age,
@@diegosilang4823 That happened in Washington (state) in the Columbia river basin.
@@GDM1787 My dear Dean, the bible is not a geology guide.
Wrong
@@norbertjendruschj9121 and you’re so certain because????
The way that guy cries, "ooohhhhhh" is funnier each time I hear it, lol.
"Here's an idea." That was great.
I lost it at the "Here's an idea"
A depressed Paul Bunyan was walking through northern Arizona dragging his giant axe across the ground.
yes, this is my favorite tale on the creation of the Grand Canyon! I nearly forgot about it until I read your comment.
I would believe that over millions and millions of years
Tbh I haven't seen that many of your videos yet, but this is o far my favourite.
THIS VIDEO IS BRILLIANT. BLESS THESE ANIMATIONS
Do an episode on the African honey bee (killer bee)
23 trillion years ago my ancestors vacationed there. What wonderful stories the family have passed down over the trillions of years.
Lol came across this video mainly out of curiosity and made me laugh. Then my wife and I see your comment and we just rolled. Thanks for the laugh.
Lol yea right
😂
My class watched this and now I am commenting on this vid LOL
That's My VHEY Official
50 seconds ago
The Grand Canyon is one of the best vlog that I ever made. with it's amazing and spectacular scenic view that really capture your attention.
When you realize that beginning wasn't Green Screen
He still didn't explain how the canyon became so large. There are places with much bigger rivers with much more rain that don't look like this.
He did should of paid attention
This was formed from the flood
@@quintonbates5281 incorrect
@@JohnDoe-fy4fw why is that so hard to believe
@@quintonbates5281 because it's literally impossible, go back public school kid
That’s such an interesting story and you tell it so well
Jamin and Mike! Lol "here's an idea"
I just love the way geologists say things like "as 'recently' as 80 million years ago!" Science is just wonderful.
Keeping in mind Earth is apparently nearly 5 billion years old.
@@mysterymaster180 That was the point I was making in a kind of round about way. Stay safe my friend.
@@mysterymaster180 the lies continue. Earth is not even millions of yrs old.
?@@Iman-ve3il
Your religion says the worlds billions of years old, not observable science
A critical part of science is observation, and the recording of it. For some reason this clip decides to ignore eye witness accounts which state that it was catostrophic forces at work which made this canyon, not uniformitarian forces. Had it been formed slowly over millions of years there would be similar canyons all over the world. Fossilisation is a rapid process, not a slow one.
How much rapid is this fossilization.
The earth is not even millions of yrs old. That’s the history lie they continue to feed the sheeple
No, the critical feature is the massive SANDSTONE type rock. You can perform simulations on how well water erodes through various types of rock and basalt or granite rock derivatives would have been fairly impervious to the Colorado River. The Sandstone that the Southwest is made of, erodes much more easily compared to bedrock in other parts of the World. There are a few more Canyons around the World, just not as large.
How long did you think the Grand Canyon was formed in? You can literally date the layers from the bottom to the top using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) techniques and the dates are identical to the radiometric dates in the rocks. OSL signals are traps in metal oxides formed when natural ionizing radiation forms defects in metal oxides like Silicates. When the rock is illuminated with sunlight the signals erase, but once covered they integrate the time they are buried very precisely!!
@@salmonkill7 the bedrock of the grand canyon isnt sandstone
@@ProSurviver It's limestone.
What's you point??
Are you one of the
Great animation to depict the formation.
Nothing prepares you when you see it for the first time... no pic, video comes close to the reality. Your senses are assaulted with awesome.
But that doesn't make sense. Why would the river cross a high plateau? It should have gone around the high plateau shouldn't it? It is as if the plateau formed around the river in some weird sense. But that goes against our most accepted theories about the age of the high plateau as well as the river.
To the students out there
Here's the time that it actually explains how it was formed
1:50
when I visited the Grand Canyon a park ranger explained that a lake formed east of the canyon and a land dam holding the water back broke and the spillage caused the canyon.
cool video!
why does there seem to be no mention of Jamin from pbs game show and Mike from Idea Channel? o.O
***** *crickets*
***** I don't know about Mike, but I know that nobody mentioned Jamin for reasons similar to why nobody mentions a crippling brain tumor.
***** What I found more appaling is the lack of Gabe from PBS Spacetime
***** "Here's an idea." ;)
PabloCorinthian Gabe is probably too busy making the relativity videos for us. Gabe is awesome
There's a reason why it is named Vishnu❤️
You're so cool! I can't get tired of watching your videos all over agani! Why can't you be my dad?
This channel deserve a lot more subs.
Yea, I agree. This channel needs 15 Million subs Right Now! People who see this: CLICK the Subscribe button!
It's totally not an ancient quarry. It's definitely just a natural wonder.
"Here's an Idea"
That was funny!
I was just at the Grand Canyon, we must have just missed each other.
Gosh a true explanation for the Grand Canyon.
Bible Creationists bang on about Noah's World Flood having created the canyon.
They also say all of human society was wiped out 5,000 years ago.
Ancestors of the present indigenous people of Australia walked there 50,000 years ago.
My teacher made me do this so 💀😭
Ok and?
Online class?
Hey, if that canyon thinks it's so "Grand", then I'd like to hear ALL about the huge canyon on Mars which dwarfs it!
***** Apples and oranges; there were different processes at work. But still, if you were standing at the edge of the Valles Marineris under a clear, butterscotch Martian sky, I bet it would be the "grandest" sight in the solar system.
AtheistRex Yes, different processes. The Valles Marineris may be largely the result of gigantic rifting (assisted in small part by some early water erosion) rather than entirely water-eroded (well, primarily water-eroded) as the Grand Canyon was, but it's still a much more impressive sight.
I'd love to see it up close. Only safe way to do that, at this point, would be thru robotic exploration.
***** I don't think there are any missions planned for that region. I think they're all focused on the ice-soil boundaries near the poles.
AtheistRex Not yet. I'm very uncomfortable about manned missions to Mars at this point; I don't think humanity has the technology (yet) to safely put someone on Mars & bring them back home alive.
***** NASA says 2030 is a good year for a manned Mars mission. The Mars One project will unfortunately not be going anywhere.
Excellent - thank you!
it's 2am and I really should be starting my paper rn
That little river as he calls it, must have rushed through this area in giant floods to cut the canyon walls when the water drained from the inland sea. Floods cut canyons straight up and down as most of the Grand Canyon is. Just my thought
When he says hundreds of millions of years were in trouble.
I agree, giant floods (plural).
1: Activates 4k
2: Computer freezes
3: Cries in the corner...
There is evidence of a super large lake that had a weak spot that let loose dumping the whole lake into the Colorado River. The intense water flow is what caused the erosion.
thx for the video!
You don't need to be great to make greatness, all you need is time!
this is a good channel, very educational
And I took that personally
Enjoying that cameo there.
THANK YOU FOR USING THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!!😃😃😊😊😁😁☺️☺️🙂🙂
Also, the Reactions team is watching this video over lunch now and we are fully divided on the JoeHa facial hair.
hello bro
It's okay to not lable people "smart" who agree with your ideas or bias. And it's okay to question and to use critical thinking and question what you're being told over and over. Also it's okay to question, particularily when someone panics if you question their assertions.
You should tell more about the location of the place you are talking about.
The river made it doesn't explain how it got so wide, even with erosion from rain and snow. It doesn't explain why larger rivers flowing through softer material like the Mississippi and the Amazon have cut wider but not deeper to the degree of the Grand Canyon.
Elevation. The Mississippi runs through extremely flat land due to former glaciation. It did cut valleys and canyons, but there wasn’t enough elevation to cut as much of a canyon, because water can not flow up, and thus it could not form a canyon, as to cut something deeper would mean that it would be below sea level.
Get with the times folks. The electric universe and the Thunderbolts project has not only the answer but has proven it in the lab, with a positive and negative electrode, electricity, the electric universe. The scar on Mars also has been produced identically. 🌝
I was thinking the same thing but I think when the inland sea drained it caused the massive erosion seen in the Grand Canyon. Probably about the time as the younger dryas cataclysms that caused a lot of other floods in the northern part of the continent.Or it could have been a thunderbolt from a passing celestial body. Planet X would be my guess.
Yes. Electrical discharge.
Instantly subbed for the name of the channel and again instantly satisfied with that outro statement ♥
Around 2:00 is incorrect. Some of these layers are continent wide. The placement of these layers was not a local event. The layers represent a snapshot of a flood at least that size.
seriously, was this greenscreen or not :D?
What happened to your glasses
Kevin Huang They fell in the canyon.
Just kidding! I'm not so blind that I need to wear them all the time, just keeping you all on your toes
It's Okay To Be Smart More importantly, what happened to the *lenses* in your glasses?
PBS Game/Show You did a video without lenses, you're the one to talk...
Dorth Lous That's the joke.
He couldn’t find them
You’re welcome!☺
they should have called it the "upsidedown ridge", not the "upsidedown mountain" :v
Lol. @ “the Colorado river made the Grand Canyon”.
I have to make a correction to the video: much of the Grand Canyon erosion happened concurrently with the Colorado Plateau Uplift, not after. Until about 5 million years ago, the Colorado River flowed along a slight different route, most likely via today's Kanab Creek. But there was another river on the plateau, also eroding the landscape, that merged with and "captured" the ancient Colorado, altering it to its present course. So the video isn't entirely wrong in stating that the river migrated headward, because one of the rivers did, until they merged into one. But the majority of the erosion of the entire canyon was happening at the same time the land was being uplifted.
Brandon Rasaka That doesn't line up with the timeline of events according to my research. The Laramide Orogeny, which was the first and major portion of uplift to create the Colorado Plateau, began about 75 million years ago, and the Colorado River didn't begin major erosion until 5-6 MYA. I think you'd be right in saying that much of the erosion happened concurrently with the rifting that opened the Gulf of California and the reversal of a portion of the Colorado, but from my understanding the uplift was essentially complete at this time, and much of the eastern water came from ancient snowmelt lakes.
If you have supporting info for that, I'd love to see it!
It's Okay To Be Smart Brandon Rasaka is correct; you may want to check out this paper from the Geology Department, University of Akron:
www.nature.nps.gov/geology/education/Foos/plateau.pdf
Which states, on page 6:
"The Laramide Orogeny occurred from the end of the Cretaceous to Early Tertiary periods and was responsible for formation of the Rocky Mountains. Deformation was more gentle on the Colorado Plateau, resulting in the formation of monoclines and normal faulting. During the Eocene the Colorado Plateau
was at a low elevation surrounded by mountains. These mountains were eroded and sediments were deposited in intervening basins, resulting in burial of Laramide structures...
Approximately 5 million years ago the entire Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau were uplifted 4,000 to 6,000 feet. This type of uplift which does not involve deformation and effects a large area is termed epeirogenic uplift. On the Colorado Plateau, uplift was facilitated by reactivation of preexisting faults and accompanied by tilting of the plateau toward the north. Present day streams established their courses at this time *and because they were lifted high above base level (sea level) they began to rigorously downcut. Deep entrenchment of streams and differential erosion of the plateau began at this time.*"
It's Okay To Be Smart yeah tell him boss
***** Brandon Rasaka Ah, so the Foos paper, which I had seen, dates from 1999. A couple of papers came out in 2010 that paint a much more complex picture, though: geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/7/671.full
From the commentary there, it seems likely that there was some uplift still occurring about 5 MYA, but a great deal of it happened as far back as the late Cretaceous.
It's Okay To Be Smart A great deal may have happened in the late Cretaceous (although it's more likely that the process had just begun in the late Cretaceous), but there was apparently a great deal of "unroofing" of rock in the general area, not just downcutting of the proto-Grand Canyon channel.
The last burst of uplift (time range estimates vary) may have caused a final spurt of erosion of the Colorado River's channel. One question is, how much downcutting took place during that last 5 to possibly 20 million years...?
One of the free papers quoted in your link states "Mid-Tertiary dates from the Grand Canyon basement at the bottom of the Upper Granite Gorge limit signifi cant incision of the modern Grand Canyon below the Kaibab surface to
Water. Everyone should know that.
We watched this video quite some time ago in my class
The landscape looks like whatever happened, happened INSTANTANEOUSLY!
Dude, please tell me you are kidding because your IQ can not possibly be that low, could it?
Has anyone heard of the Hydroplate Theory by Walter Brown? His Theory seems to be the most logical to me.
Hey Joe. I keep forgetting you're all part of PBS and I'm subscribed to all three of you. You guys should all do I jointed video on something.
when your teacher says want to watch a movie :PPPP
well why don't other rivers form canyons like this
@markj6700 there was one formed on Mars too!! Vallis Marineris
this question is addressed in the video. it is the literal purpose of the video.
The creationists are coming the creationists are coming!
"If you believe the grand canyon formed over a long time with a little bit of water, why can't we believe it formed in a short time with a lot of water?"
Checkmate, geologists!
czcams.com/video/DZ4eVMd3_PE/video.html nuf said.
No answer will change your mind, but here goes. Before dams were built on the Colorado River, there were periods of massive flows from heavy mountain snow in the Rocky Mountains. I know what your thinking. Noah built an ark, filled it with two of every KIND, including baby dinosaurs, and floated around until a dove (sea gull) landed on the ark with an olive branch in it's mouth. Then, Noah returned all the animals and plants to their original locations on earth approximately 5,000 years ago. Your right, what's so hard to believe about that?
I forgot to add that Noah also added two of every kind of micro-organisms that lived in soils and ponds from around the world. I still can't figure out how he knew he had a male and a female flea. How'd he get their little legs apart? Oh well, I guess we can just assume he did it somehow.
@@kennyw871 Not to mention he was 600 at the time
How about it was formed by massive mamma made machines, ever thought about that anyone?? 🤔
I got the idea of tackling the rising of the ocean level by dumping a huge portion into the canyon. Won’t ever happen. But it is interesting to think about.
Good info
When I see the Canyon Iook like water was drying and living the layers and the only way water was high like that and powerfull to make the erotion was the Noah's Flood.
Same layers are all arround the world.
You'll appreciate this link .. he actually demonstrates and shows all the real and technical evidence of sudden catastrophic formation.
czcams.com/video/iAcBSoCMbg0/video.html
I've seen in another video that the Grand Canyon probably was created in a week or so when a side of a giant frozen lake broke in the glaciation age, deversing a huge amount of water in no time. Which theory is the right one?
The grand canyon was formed around 4 thousand years ago not millions of years.
Neither, but was formed by evil people. National parks are not wonders, but yet devastated wasteland destroyed by greedy people… the silicon trees which stood as gigantic wonders were intentionally destroyed by massive man made machines. There’s pictures to prove it….
That theory is talking about the Missoula floods in Washington state
I want to go back to it
Beautiful.
They say that you could fit the entire world's population in that canyon. If everyone was Japanese, this would happen.
🤔
Hey Vsauce, Michael here
You're shooting in 4K, but no 60FPS? For shame! :P
Alex Shannon tbh I am not a fan of 60 fps, 23.98 is plenty of frames for me :)
It's Okay To Be Smart Don't say that around the PC Master-race :P
But honestly, even though I don't tend to care about 60FPS I would always prefer to produce my videos at that framerate, since it keeps people in the comments from complaining :P
Alex Shannon As long as there are no fast moving objects or quick camera movements (like in games) 30 fps is fine. But games at anything lower than 60 fps is horror. PC Master Race FTW!
Xackus As a budding filmmaker I've decided that I will shoot in 60fps for the sake of futureproofing.
Alex Shannon Beware of the "soap opera effect" that comes with high frame rates. It ends up making productions look very cheap and nasty.
Such good content
I know this video was created 3+ years ago...
I like to compare "Mother Nature's" 5-6 million years to build the Grand Canyon...the Colorado River serving as her knife...to...
"Human Ingenuity" which took only 10 years to build the Panama Canal... connecting the two great bodies of water; Atlantic & Pacific Oceans.
It would be interesting to see a segment or video about the Panama Canal and the Grand Canyon comparing the two amazing feats; Mother Nature v. Human Ingenuity!
The reason being, it highlights how big of an impact human activity can have on the earth and how fast "we" can change it on a Geographical Scale...to compare these two great feats highlights huge difference in time...(think of the impact human beings have on global warming for example)...
This is why I think the Panama Canal is such a great, intresting, and scary accomplishment all at the same time.
Had sedimentology exam today... :D
teekanne15 Yet another -ology I never even knew existed.