Exploration of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River
Exploración del Gran Cañón y del río Colorado
- Date
- 1869 · confidence high
- Place
- Grand Canyon, Arizona, United States
- Credited to
- John Wesley Powell (1869); García López de Cárdenas (first European sighting, 1540)
- People
- 👤 García López de Cárdenas1500–👤 John Wesley Powell1834–1902
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Powell, a one-armed war veteran, descended the Colorado in wooden boats through unexplored canyons, mapping the geology of the last great blank space on the map of the United States and reading 2 billion years of strata in its walls.
Coordinates of the canyon. Inhabited by the Havasupai, Hualapai, Hopi and Navajo peoples; Cárdenas saw it in 1540 guided by Hopi. Powell explored and described it scientifically.
What it led to
- Founding of the US Geological Survey (1879) with Powell as director
- Report on the arid lands and water policy in the West
- Grand Canyon National Park (1919)
Built on
- Smith's stratigraphy
- Post-Civil War surveys of the West
Made possible
- Systematic geological mapping of the United States
- Management of arid basins