Photo: Grand Canyon Gorge Is 9 Times Older Than Thought

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An area of the Grand Canyon known as Esplanade, a broad, heavily eroded terrace of barren rock, appears in an undated file photo.

A new study suggests that the canyon's Upper Granite Gorge formed 55 million years ago, suggesting that the Grand Canyon we see today may be the result of "ancestral" canyons that slowly grew together.

Photograph by W. E. Garrett/NGS

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