It’s been said so many times that it sounds like a cliché, but taking a hike into the Grand Canyon is literally a Walk Through Time. Nowhere else on the planet is such a great amount of Earth history exposed for us to see and understand. The Grand …
Kaibab Limestone to Supai Formation
The rim of the canyon is formed of a layer about 300 feet thick called the Kaibab Formation. This creamy yellow limestone has fossils in it: sharks, fish, corals, brachiopods, bryozoans, crinoids and sponges, that tell us it formed in a shallow, …
Redwall Limestone to Tapeats Sandstone
As you finish your long traverse in the red layers of the Supai Group, you'll come to a very steep part of the trail, where switchbacks wind down through the next layer, the Redwall Limestone. It doesn't matter which trail you are on - you'll feel as …
Continue Reading about Redwall Limestone to Tapeats Sandstone
The Supergroup
What lies below the Tapeats Sandstone will be different depending on where you are in the Canyon. On the Kaibab Trail, you will step from the Tapeats Sandstone down into more sedimentary layers of red, gold, brown, and purple. These layers are much …
The Inner Gorge
Now, when you step below the Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks, or below the Tapeats Sandstone, depending on what trail you’re hiking, you will have gone back 1.7 billion years, 1700 million years! As you enter the Inner Gorge of Grand Canyon, and you …