Some of the Grand Canyon’s youngest rocksThis photo captured out the window of a plane shows some of

Some of the Grand Canyon’s youngest rocksThis photo captured out the window of a plane shows some of the youngest rocks found in the Grand Canyon.The Kaibab plateau is an area of flat land sitting atop rocks that are Permian in age, over 250 million years old. But within the last few hundred thousand years, the black rocks in this photo have appeared on top of them.The Uinkaret volcanic field is made of a series of volcanoes mostly on the Canyon’s north rim (although there are a volcanoes in a different volcanic field on the southern side as well). These volcanoes have mostly erupted basaltic lava, which flows easily over the surface. When they’ve reached the canyon, these lava flows have poured over the edge at places like Lava Falls, seen to the right of this image.When these lavas poured down to the river level, they actually dammed the Canyon, creating lakes behind them not unlike the manmade lakes on the Colorado river today…with the exception that the lava dams didn’t have spillways and thus might have been overtopped or even collapsed catastrophically.There is actually quite a bit of scientific debate about why these lavas are erupting. The modern Colorado Plateau is a fairly stable place; there aren’t a whole lot of faults actively cutting the Grand Canyon today. There is active movement to the East and the West in the Rio Grande and Basin and Range rift zones, which could bring hot mantle near enough to the surface to melt, but it’s not clear why those would impact the Colorado plateau in this area.Other alternatives have proposed some sort of plume-like structure, initiating deeper in the mantle beneath the Colorado plateau, carries hot mantle up to the surface and breaks through to the crust to drive the volcanism.The volcanic fields in the area today are the most active modern phase of rocks being generated in the Grand Canyon area.-JBBImage credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/2919774298Read more:http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/39/1/27.shorthttp://geology.gsapubs.org/content/30/8/739.shortPrevious articles:https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=71718732167564https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=717596974968016https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=718487278212319https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/718917208169326https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/719035941490786https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/719534524774261https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=720485404679173https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=720916891302691https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/721282287932818https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/721455997915447https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/722212221173158https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/722332104494503https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/723288294398884https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/photos/a.352867368107647.80532.352857924775258/723925267668520/?type=1https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/photos/a.352867368107647.80532.352857924775258/724756080918772/?type=1https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/724792024248511https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/725410850853295https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/726153457445701https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/726938514033862https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727461423981571https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727462763981437https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727463347314712https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/photos/p.727464010647979/727464010647979/?type=1https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727464800647900https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727465573981156https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727465993981114https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727466543981059https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/727466987314348 -- source link

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