What is the oldest rock in the Grand Canyon?
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The oldest rock at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is indeed the Vishnu Schist, however the first answer given is wrong about the age. It is 2 BILLION years old. The canyon itself is believed to have been formed over the past 5 or 6 million years by erosion of much older rocks that range in age from 250 million years at the top of the canyon to the 2 billion year old rock at the bottom.
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It will make a metabasite. The type (or grade) of metabasite it makes depends on the depth (temperature and pressure) at which it is buried.\n\nLow grade metamorphism of basalt (meaning not very hot and not too great of pressure) results in zeolites or hornfels. High pressure and low temperature conditions are rare and so is blueschist. This really neat (my very favourite of all rocks) sky-blue rock can be found in accretion zones where a back-thrusting top plate can bring this rock back to the surface. As temperature climbs, greenschist, amphibolite and then granulite can be formed. Greenschist is a smooth green rock, amphibolite is a jagged dark green rock (with high amounts of the mineral amphibole, usually hornblende), and granulite is a grainy greyish rock (the samples I saw anyway, it may vary but in my class it was gneissic granulite). The highest grade metamorphic rock is eclogite, found at great depths. I admit I have never seen this rock or heard much about it so you're on your own to look that one up.
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The oldest fossil evidence for life on Earth is found in 3.5 billion year old rocks in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Along with rocks of similar age in South Africa these are the oldest well preserved sedimentary rocks known. The evidence for fossil life takes the form of: \n\nstructures called stromatolites which are believed to be the fossilized remains of laminated structures built by colonies of micro-organisms. Modern examples of such colonies are found in Shark Bay in Western Australia \nmicrofossils of individual micro-organisms. \ncarbon isotope ratios indicative of biological activity. \nSome recent results include the discovery of 3.45 billion year old stromatolites by scientists of the Geological Survey of Western Australia, and the reporting of microfossils from a deep sea hot spring deposit of age 3.2 billion years by Birger Rasmussen of the University of Western Australia.\n\nWhile controversy surrounds many of the reports of fossils of this age, it is generally accepted that there is sufficient evidence to be reasonably sure that life was well established on earth at about 3.5byr ago. Older rocks at 3.8byr age in Greenland are too greatly deformed to preserve fossils but have been claimed to show evidence for life in their carbon isotope ratios.\n+\nFUNGI and algae first teamed up to form lichen 600 million years ago, according to newly discovered fossils from China. This makes them slightly older than the first fossils of complex soft-bodied animals, and far older than land plants.\n\nLichens are the product of a symbiotic relationship between algae, which produce food, and fungi, which provide moisture, nutrients and a protective framework. The new fossils come from south China, and were laid down in shallow seawater (Science, vol 308, p 1017).
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The first recorded sighting of the Grand Canyon by a European was in 1540, García López de Cárdenas from Spain. The first scientific expedition to the canyon was led by U.S. Major John Wesley Powell in the late 1860s\nJames Ohio Pattie, with a group of American trappers and mountain men were probably the next Europeans to reach the Canyon in 1826, although there is little documentation to support this.\n\nJacob Hamblin (a Mormon missionary) was sent by Brigham Young in the 1850's to locate easy river crossing sites in the Canyon. Building good relations with local Native Americans and white settlers, he discovered Lee's Ferry in 1858 and Pierce Ferry (later operated by, and named for, Harrison Pierce) - the only two sites suitable for ferry operation.\n\nIn 1857, the U.S. War Department asked Lieutenant Joseph Ives to lead an expedition to assess the feasibility of an up-river navigation from the Gulf of California. Also in a stern wheeler steamboat "Explorer", after two months and 350 miles of difficult navigation, his party reached Black Canyon some two months after George Johnson. The "Explorer" struck a rock and was abandoned. Ives led his party east into the Canyon - they were the first Europeans to travel the Diamond Creek drainage and traveled eastwards along the South Rim. James White (this links to a disambiguation page that does not contain a link to this James White yet!)\nIn 1956 the Grand Canyon was the site of America's worst commercial aviation disaster at the time.\n\nOn the morning of June 30, 1956, a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation and a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 departed Los Angeles International Airport within three minutes of one another on eastbound transcontinental flights. Approximately 90 minutes later, the two propeller-driven airliners collided above the canyon while both were flying in unmonitored airspace.\n\nThe wreckage of both planes fell into the eastern portion of the canyon, on Temple and Chuar buttes, near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers. The disaster killed all 128 passengers and crew members aboard both planes. This accident lead to the instutuion of high altitude flightways and positive control by enroute ground controllers
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Most people would think that experts agree on an explanation for the formation of such a grandiose site as the Grand Canyon. Surprisingly that isn't so. It is an enigma. The latest attempt to figure it out occurred as late as June last year at the Grand Canyon Symposium 2000. The Colorado River is held generally responsible for carving the Canyon. However, even before the Glen Canyon dam stemmed its awesome desert floods, the river seems hopelessly inadequate to have formed such a geological spectacle. The Colorado River flows west from the Rockies and encounters a raised plateau known as the Kaibab Upwarp. Instead of turning away from that barrier it continues through the plateau. How could it do that? The river is much younger than the Kaibab Upwarp so it could not have progressively cut the Canyon even if the land rose very slowly. In any case, most of the material that was removed from the Canyon seems to be missing, according to a report from the symposium, leaving little evidential support for the original theory that a simple progression of water erosion formed the Canyon we see today. Since the 1930's and 1940's, geologists have searched for other explanations -- that the Canyon once drained to the south-east (reversing the route of the present-day Little Colorado, then joining the Rio Grande and into the Gulf of Mexico. When problems arose with that explanation too, it was proposed that it once flowed NE along one of the present-day side tributaries such as Cataract Creek.
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The oldest dam still in use is in Orontes in Syria, and was built in 1300 BC.\n\n\ntype dam in search query in the link below.
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Leatherback turtles are supposed to be the oldest species among the sea turtles. \nhttp://www.statiapark.org/tw/tw_species.htm
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Earth's age is based on several things:\n\n1) dating meteorites. When we find a meteorite from this solar system that has a similar composition to earth, you get many young ages, but the oldest and most common date to 4.6 Ga (billion years).\n\n2) isotope trends. When you look at certain radiogenic isotope ratios that change with time, like Rb/Sr or U/Pb, you find that many rocks with differnt ratios of many ages form a line, and the line traces back to an origin of 4.6 Ga as well.\n\nThe oldest life is 3 1/2 Ga, the oldest rock is about 4 Ga, and the oldest date ever found is on the highly durable mineral Zircon from Australia, it's date is 4.2 Ga. So, there is no direct method, it is based on inferences. However, many different inferences lead to the same number 4.559 Ga (to be specific).\n\nYou would have to throw out everything we know and love about Geology to accept a young earth view. When you look at the Grand Canyon, how can you say that only took 6000 years to form?
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The Guinness Book of World Records currently lists a 12,000 year old California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) named "Eternal God" as the oldest tree on earth. Previously, the "Methuselah" Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) held the record at about 4,700 years.\n\nThe Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) was first identified as a long-lived tree by Dr Edmund Schulman following surveys in California's White Mountains in 1954. The oldest pines grow at elevations above 3,000 metres in arid, rocky areas of the Great Basin that covers the state of Nevada and parts of Utah and California. (This mountainous area of 500,000 square kilometres has no rivers or creeks flowing out of it.) They exist on the tree line in severe conditions, and often appear to be mostly dead, with only part of the trunk having living bark and leaves. This growth strategy is a response to damage from climate and lightning strikes, and allows the tree to exist on limited resources.\n\nThe bristlecones of Wheeler Peak in Nevada were believed to be older than those found in California. In 1964 a geology student called Donald R. Currey came to Wheeler Peak to study ice age glaciers, partly by collecting tree ring data. Using coring tools, he identified trees over 4,000 years old.\n\nWhen his coring tool jammed inside a massive tree, he asked for, and received, permission from the US Forest Service to cut the tree off at 2.4 metres above the ground and keep a horizontal slab for study. When this slab had its rings counted, it turned out to be over 4,844 years old. Later cores taken closer to ground level by dendrochronologist Don Graybill showed it to be 4,862 years old - the oldest living thing ever discovered.\n\nWheeler Peak is now part of the Great Basin National Park, which was created in 1986.\n\nThen a 4,600+ year old bristlecone called "Methuselah" in the White Mountains of California was considered as the oldest tree now living. Some reports have it as 4,789 years old.\n\nWe can say,today,as ref to The Guinness Book of World Records,12,000 year old California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) named "Eternal God" is the oldest tree on earth!!
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2,000 years old is the oldest.
96220
No one knows for certain. The oldest civilized archaeological sites are in the Sumerian region and also in Nigeria. Not sure which is older. Nor am I sure that they were the "first".
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The oldest one in the country is in Maine\nPoland Spring Resort's Golf Course is considered the Oldest Resort Course in America.
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There are some famous places where Precambrian rock is exposed such as the Canadian Shield. It spans across Canada & parts of Greenland.\n\nThe basement rock in the Grand Canyon (rock on the bottom) is also visible.\n\nMost Precambrian rock is covered w/ sediment & or sedimentary rock where lowlying areas of it exist.\n\nAnywhere where Precambrian rock has been uplifted is a good place to look. Like the Teton Mtn. Range in Wyoming. That would be your best bet. At the feet of fault block mtn. ranges.
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Earth is way older than radiocarbon dating can determine, i.e. way older than 60,000 years.\n\nSedimental rocks show evidence of the magnetic cycles of earth which reach back into the pre-cambrium.\n\nThorium decay is used for dating ancient rocks, and Thorium decay has been put into relation with these cycles. While not perfect, this method has so far given good evidence.
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I know that the earliest recordings of writing were found on cave walls, circa 25,000 - 30,000 years BP, but as far as portable objects on which to record communication ... I would say that you are partially correct in saying a "slab of rock." \n\nNine thousand years ago in the neolithic fertile crescent, we find counting tokens, small pieces of rock on which were inscribed symbols to convey messages -- these were quite portable and widely used. \n\nThen, around 4100 BCE, these small pieces of rock started to become the "slabs of rock" we see depicted, with more and more symbols. \n\nHope this helps! Good luck! :)
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The human history of the park dates back 12,000 years. It was known to the original natives as "Mitzi-a-dazi," the "River of Yellow Rocks," because of the hydrothermally altered iron-containing yellow rocks in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (many people incorrectly believe that the yellow color is from sulfur).\n\nThe Native Americans that hunted and fished in the Yellowstone region also utilized the significant amounts of obsidian found in the park to make cutting tools and weapons. In fact, arrowheads made of Yellowstone obsidian have been found as far away as the Mississippi Valley, which strongly indicate that a regular obsidian trade existed between Yellowstone Native Americans and tribes further east.\n\n Lower Yellowstone FallIn 1806 a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition named John Colter left the Expedition to join a group of fur trappers and was probably the first non-Native American to visit the region and make contact with the Native Americans there. After surviving wounds he suffered in a battle with Crow and Blackfoot tribes, he gave a description of a place of "fire and brimstone" that was dismissed by most people as delirium. The supposedly imaginary place was nicknamed "Colter's Hell."\n\nMountain man Jim Bridger later returned from an 1857 expedition to the park's area and told tales of boiling springs, spouting water, a mountain of glass and yellow rock. These reports were largely ignored, however, because Bridger was known for being a "spinner of yarns." Nonetheless his stories did arouse the interest of explorer and geologist F.V. Hayden who in 1859 started a two-year survey of the upper Missouri River region with Bridger as a guide and with United States Army surveyor W.F. Raynolds. The party was able to reach the approaches to the Yellowstone region but was not able to go any further due to heavy snows. The intervening American Civil War stopped all attempts to explore the region, and Hayden would not be able to fulfill his mission to explore the area for another 11 years.\n\n North Gate to Yellowstone Park at Gardiner, Montana, which says "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People."A party of Montanans then organized the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition, headed by the surveyor-general of Montana Henry Washburn. Amongst the group was Nathaniel P. Langford, who would later become known as "National Park" Langford, and an Army detachment commanded by Lt. Gustavus Doane. The expedition spent about a month in 1870 exploring the region, collecting specimens and naming sites of interest.\n\nIn 1871 Hayden led a second, larger expedition, which was now government sponsored, to the Yellowstone region. He compiled a comprehensive report on Yellowstone which included large-format photographs by William Henry Jackson and paintings by Thomas Moran. This report helped to convince the U.S. Congress to withdraw this region from public auction. Then on March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park.\n\nLangford then served for five years without pay as the first superintendent of the park and was followed by several other superintendents (who worked with some minimal funding). The second superintendent was Philetus Norris who essentially volunteered for the position, after traveling through Yellowstone and witnessing its problems first hand. During his tenure Congress finally began to give the superintendent a salary and minimal funds to operate the park. He used these monies to expand access to and further explore Yellowstone. Norris also hired Harry Yount (nicknamed "Rocky Mountain Harry") to control poaching and vandalism in the park. Today, Harry Yount is considered the very first national park ranger.\n\n Mammoth Hot SpringsThree additional superintendents followed, but none proved effective in stopping the destruction of Yellowstone's natural resources.\n
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from the website of Geotimes, article by Megan Sever:\n\n"Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse are both carved from the Harney Peak granite, which is named for the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains at 7,242 feet. The granite of the Harney Peak batholith was emplaced around 1.7 billion years ago at a depth of 3 to 6 miles, says Mark Fahrenbach, a geologist with the South Dakota Geological Survey. Some of the granite cooled quickly, forming finer mineral grains, and some cooled more slowly forming coarse-grained pegmatite. Both carvings exhibit a mixture of each rock texture."