When Did Canyons Form?

In many museums, the story about canyon formation is that a river slowly and patiently carved the canyons over many thousands or millions of years.

Creation scientists believe that most of the world’s canyons formed sometime after the Flood. The rock layers through which the canyons are carved were laid down during (or soon after) the global, watery catastrophe.

After the Flood, there would have been copious amounts of rainfall during the initial stages of the Ice Age. This rainfall created many lakes, which eventually breached their respective dams to form some of the canyons of the world. For example, some scientists believe that the Grand Canyon could have been carved in a relatively short amount of time when a massive amount of water in northeastern Arizona and Colorado catastrophically breached a dam and rushed out.

Additionally, there is now much evidence that some post-Flood flooding and canyon cutting occurred as a result of glacial outburst floods (or large amounts of water emanating from below ice sheets). For example, scientists believe that the Channeled Scablands were carved when Lake Missoula burst through its ice dam in northern Idaho and swept through eastern Washington into northern Oregon and out into the Pacific Ocean. They believe that the giant lake emptied in two days! For more information, visit www.answersingenesis.org/geology/catastrophism/the-story-that-wont-be-told/.

There is much observational evidence that canyon formation can happen quickly. For example, Burlingame Canyon, near Walla Walla, Washington, was observed to form in less than six days in 1926! For more information, visit www.answersingenesis.org/geology/natural-features/a-canyon-in-six-days/.