23 Facts About Grand Canyon

1.

Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States.

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2.

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile .

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3.

The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was Garcia Lopez de Cardenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.

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4.

Grand Canyon is a river valley in the Colorado Plateau that exposes uplifted Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata, and is one of the six distinct physiographic sections of the Colorado Plateau province.

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5.

The uplift of the Colorado Plateau is uneven, and the Kaibab Plateau that the Grand Canyon bisects is over one thousand feet higher at the North Rim than at the South Rim.

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6.

Grand Canyon is part of the Colorado River basin which has developed over the past 70 million years.

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7.

Groundwater flow in the Grand Canyon region is an active area of study.

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8.

Different geologic levels of the Grand Canyon have created two major aquifers where groundwater collects.

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9.

Flow of groundwater in the Grand Canyon region is influenced in multiple ways by geologic faults and folds.

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10.

Studies of the chemical composition of groundwater at sites across the Grand Canyon region indicate that groundwater contains a fraction of modern water, and that many springs have a mix of modern water and older groundwater.

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11.

Grand Canyon acted as an advisor to John Wesley Powell, before his second expedition to the Grand Canyon, serving as a diplomat between Powell and the local native tribes to ensure the safety of his party.

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12.

Grand Canyon led a small party of men in search of water on the Coconino Plateau near the canyon's south rim.

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13.

Grand Canyon hired nine men, including his brother Walter, and collected provisions for ten months.

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14.

Grand Canyon was the first to use the term "Grand Canyon", in 1871; previously it had been called the "Big Canyon".

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15.

Brown drowned in an accident near Marble Grand Canyon: Stanton made new boats and proceeded to explore the Colorado all of the way to the Gulf of California.

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16.

Grand Canyon became an official national monument in 1908 and a national park in 1919.

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17.

Grand Canyon's ecosystem was permanently changed after the construction of the Glen Grand Canyon Dam in 1963.

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18.

In 2018, the Department of Interior started experimenting with “adaptive management” of the Glen Grand Canyon Dam, using a High-Flow Experiment water release to shift volumes of sand and monitoring effects such as the dispersal of invasive tamarisk seeds.

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19.

The Havasupai people and the Grand Canyon Trust sought to block the reopening of the Pinyon Plain Mine .

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20.

Conditions in the Grand Canyon region are generally dry, but substantial precipitation occurs twice annually, during seasonal pattern shifts in winter and in late summer .

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21.

The Grand Canyon Ultra Marathon is a 78-mile race over 24 hours.

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22.

In 1956, the Grand Canyon was the site of the deadliest commercial aviation disaster in history at the time.

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23.

Grand Canyon was under investigation for the murder of his ex-girlfriend which had taken place the day before in Scottsdale.

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