a place of beauty Look around You are standing in one of the most amazing places on Earth A huge crack in the land spreads out in front of you Looking down you see rocks that rise from the ground far below Some of the rocks are flat on top Others are jagged and sharp The landscape is striped with different colors and the rocks glow in the sun Patches of green dot the ground and small narrow canyons cut into the rocks A sparkle of water shows a river flowing at the bottom of the canyon From the top the river looks small but a closer look shows a noisy rush of water carving through the canyon floor This place is the Grand Canyon It is millions of years old It is one of the most beautiful places on Earth The Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World It is the only Wonder located in the United States The seven natural wonders of the world 4
how was the grand canyon formed The Grand Canyon is in northern Arizona The canyon is located on a large flat area of land called the Colorado Plateau The Grand Canyon is 277 miles 446 km long In some places it is 18 miles 29 km wide and more than a mile 1 6 km deep The Grand Canyon is in the desert The land here is very dry Yet water formed the Grand Canyon The Colorado River flows through the bottom of the canyon Over millions of years the water wore away the rocks around it This process is called erosion Wind and rain also cause erosion Rain washes away bits of rock Wind blows against the rocks and wears them away one tiny piece at a time We learn much about nature culture and history of the Grand Canyon from this magnificent river 6
Erosion by wind and rain creates beautiful rock formations in the canyon Erosion takes a long time It has taken six million years for the Colorado River to carve the Grand Canyon out of the rocks The movement of water created different shapes in the rocks Some of the rocks are flat on top These are called mesas Some rocks are harder than others If a rock is soft it wears away more quickly than a rock that is hard That is why the rocks in the Grand Canyon have different shapes IT’S A FACT Arizona’s nickname is the Grand Canyon State 7
