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Published online 11 April 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.750
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Grand Canyon's 55-million-year-old secret
An ancient river may have laid the canyon's foundation.
Visitors are often told that the Grand Canyon formed 6 million years ago, when the Colorado River assumed its current course. But a new study indicates that a large chunk of the Grand Canyon may have taken its shape from a far more ancient gorge, carved out 55 million years ago by a river flowing in the opposite direction.
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