Heard a guy at the Grand Canyon call the rock layers 'just dirt' and it got me going

I was hiking the South Kaibab Trail last month and overheard a guy point at the whole canyon wall and say, 'It's just a bunch of old dirt, right?' to his friend. I almost stopped walking. It's the Vishnu Schist and the Tapeats Sandstone and a billion years of history, not dirt. I ended up talking to them for ten minutes about how each stripe is a different world, like the Redwall Limestone being a sea floor. The guy seemed to get it by the end, said he'd never thought about rocks telling a story. It made me realize how easy it is to see a landscape and not see the time in it. Has anyone else had to give a quick 'Geology 101' lesson to a surprised stranger?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.jade13d ago

That idea of seeing the time in a landscape really hits home. I read a piece once about how the canyon walls are basically a giant timeline you can walk past. It makes you want to point at every layer and explain what was living there.

kim.wren13d ago

What's the most mind-blowing fact you learned from that piece, @coleman.jade? I love that feeling of wanting to explain each layer, like the whole planet's history is just sitting there in plain sight. Does it make you feel tiny or more connected?