The latest best estimate on the age of the Grand Canyon is taking more than a canyon-size leap back in time — almost 65 million years, in fact.
Rebecca Flowers, an assistant professor in geological sciences at the University of Colorado, is co-author of a paper published online this week in Science magazine, which puts the age of the Grand Canyon's formation at 70 million years. At that time, dinosaurs still walked the earth.
Previously, the most widely accepted estimates put the Grand Canyon's age at a relatively sprightly 5 million to 6 million years, based on the age of gravel washed downstream by the ancestral Colorado River. Also, a previous Science magazine report in 2008 set it at 17 million years old.
Read more of the article Study: Grand Canyon older by 65 million years at DailyCamera.com.