These photos were taken at the end of a visit to the Grand Canyon. We were near the end of the canyon, several miles from where the Colorado River empties into Lake Mead.

In the background, you can see the towering, layered structure of the canyon wall, and the countless tons of debris which have accumulated below.

In the foreground, at the river level, the same thing is seen, but in miniature: Dramatic layering, and sloughed material which has fallen away from the those thin layers which compose the river bank.

All of these sedimentary strata were deposited by water in a process called hydro-sorting. The ancient, thick layers were laid down by an unimaginable catastrophic flood. The thin ones at the bottom of the canyon were formed in the early 1980's when the water level in Lake Mead was unusually high, and the river backed up miles into the canyon.