Wonderful evening light over the Grand Canyon, USA

by Rietje Bulthuis

Beautiful evening light over the Grand Canyon, USA
You can find more pictures of the Grand Canyon in my album 'Grand Canyon'.
View over the colourful Grand Canyon from the south rim. The Grand Canyon is a very wide and deep gorge in the north of the American state of Arizona. Over the course of millions of years, the water of the Colorado has created this gorge in the landscape. This extreme erosion was made possible by the fact that the area in which the gorge is located was rising further and further up. The Colorado erodes about 16 cm per 1000 years. The canyon is about 435 kilometers long and has a width that varies between 15 and 29 kilometers. According to measurements, the rock that is now exposed is about 2 billion years old. The geological structure is part of the Grand Staircase. The walls of the Grand Canyon are reddish striped due to the different compositions of the layers in the succession. The red rock of the Grand Canyon is appreciated at its best just after sunrise and just before sunset. It is therefore often recommended to visit the Canyon around these times.