The Colorado River runs through the lowest visible layer, the Vishnu Schist, at over two billion years old the oldest layer in the canyon. It is composed of metamorphosed sand, mud, silt and ash ...

The Vishnu schist — the Grand Canyon’s 1.7 billion-year-old “basement layer” — was veined with pink stripes of Zoroaster granite. Near miles 117, we came to Elves Chasm, ...

The Grand Canyon is the deepest erosion furrow on the surface of our planet. ... The predominant formation is Vishnu Schist, 1.8-billion-year old rock from the basement of time.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK — There are six of us, all women, sitting in the dusk about 1,300 feet above the Colorado River. ... a looming wall of Vishnu schist, ...

Bill McKibben writes about the fight to save the Grand Canyon, ... the Bright Angel Shale—by the time you reach the tortured-looking Vishnu Schist, you’re a couple billion years back in time.

Floating in the bottom of the Grand Canyon last spring, I was traveling back in time in more ways than one. In a narrow section, where the Colorado River runs deep and quiet, Vishnu schist offers ...

Welcome back for the second part of my tale of the July boat trip through the Grand Canyon with the NCSE, ... Under it lies 1.75-billion-year-old rock with the magnificent name of Vishnu Schist.

It was a hot day and I was wearing a light day pack, carrying mostly water. I had been down into the Horn Creek area before and felt I could ...

The Grand Canyon is as full of stunning stories as it is filled with beauty. There’s the classic tale of the one-armed explorer John Wesley Powell along with the lesser-known but incredible ...

The Vishnu schist — the Grand Canyon’s 1.7 billion-year-old “basement layer” — was veined with pink stripes of Zoroaster granite. Near miles 117, we came to Elves Chasm, ...