A recently released study indicates that sections of the Grand Canyon might have only formed 5 or 6 million years ago, according to UPI.com.
The study says that while certain segments of the canyon are 70 million years old, it wasn't completely formed until a few million years ago.
The new study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Previous research indicated that the canyon was completed in its entirety 70 million years ago at the "same location and depth" that it's currently at, according to UPI.com.
"We are also refuting the 'young canyon model', which claims the canyon was cut entirely in the last six million years. Instead, we show that the Colorado River used some old segments as it found its path from the Rockies to the Gulf of California in the past six million years," said Professor Karl Karlstrom from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, according to UPI.com.
At least two of the three central segments of the Grand Canyon, known as the "Hurricane" segment and the "Eastern Grand Canyon," were formed 50 to 70 million years ago and 15 to 30 million years ago, respectively.
Two end segments, called the "Marble Canyon," and the "Westernmost Grand Canyon," were only created five to six million years ago, according to the study.
It is believed that these two segments formed when the Colorado River discovered a path from the Rockies to the Gulf of California.
"If you were to add up the 280-mile length and ask, 'how much is young? More than half of it is young; a quarter of it is middle-aged -- 15-25 million years old; and the rest of it is 70 million years old," Karlstrom said to the BBC.
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