Grand Canyon Author: Slavomír Sremaňák 1.D 2005/2006

Content What is it? How was it resulting? Area info Fauna & Flora Cross- word Conclusion

What is it? Grand Canyon is one of the most famous and the biggest canyons in the world. Even though it isn’t the deepest canyon of the world, is beautiful and spectacular canyon. Here live a lot of kinds of animals, flowers, which adapted their life in this special setting. In regard to its special depth we can find on its slopes many climate zones from dry subtropics to arctic-alpine. It is a great riverain vale has created by the river Colorado. The colourful canyon rocks were formed many millions of years ago.

This famous canyon, one of the most sights of nature, lies in the Rocky Mountains on south-west USA in state Arizona and became national park in 1919 and was named as canyon i.e. Grand Canyon and is under safekeeping international organisation UNESCO.

How was it resulting? The mosses were crumbling rocks with their acids and so changing for ground, where plant found feet, which with root system next was pulping rocky stage. But the river Colorado did the biggest work. The water was permeating into little cracks and invaded rocks and was depositing dirt bed of red mud, hence was named Colorado because in Spanish Colorado means red.

Area info Grand Canyon doesn’t line the whole vale of river Colorado, but only sector from inflow Little Colorado to west border Colorado’s plain, where reaches max. parameters and the most delightful shaped order. It spreads on surface above 5000 km sq.. On the deepest place is range between its borders about 30 km and go down from east to west. And is long about 450km.

Width and depth of the canyon vary from place to place. At the South Rim, near Grand Canyon Village, it’s a vertical mile (cca 5,000 feet/ 1524 m) from rim to river, or 7 miles/ 11.3 km by train. At its deepest, it’s 6,000 vertical feet/ 1,829 m from rim to river. The width of the canyon at Grand Canyon Village is 10 miles/ 16 km(rim to rim).

It is very deep, somewhere is as many as 1,8 km deep, though its official depth is 1,6 to 1,65km. Elevation above sea level is the most highly in Watchtower 2267 m a.s.l. on south of Colorado’s plain, but on north in North Rim achieves the most famous plain of its south parts is Coconino as many as 2690 m a.s.l..

Fauna & Flora There are many kinds of vascular vegetation (cca 1,737 known species, 167 species of fungi, 64 species of moss and 195 species of lichen) and kinds of animals (355 species birds, 89 species mammals, 47 species reptiles, 9 species amphibians, 17 species fish and thousands species of aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate). These plants and animals vary of depth, too of different vegetation zones and parts of canyon.

Here live animals: mammals, Texas’s rattlesnakes, iguanas, carnivores (puma, bobcat, coyote, wolf), sheep, mice deer, eagles, golden eagles, indigo birds, swallows, fish etc..

Mammals

Birds

Amphibians

And vegetate: cactuses, ferns, freshwater plants, grasses, lichens, mosses, liverworts, mushrooms and other fungi, trees and shrubs, bushes, wildflowers, dahlias etc..

G D W N R T S N A I N E N T H R D E E S C C O I A I Z O N U B E Y E A R O U L N N T I L G.C. is the „heart” of 4.______ 7.______. G.C. is 11.______ Park and has 97 9.______ and here live a 8.______ of threatened and endangered species. Only here a pink 2. ______ lives. On specific places it has an 10.______ vegetation. It is the third 5.______ canyon in the world. Its depth 1.______ from west to east. 6.______ is the most famous plain of its south parts. On its slopes we can find climate zones from dry subtropics to arctic -3. ______.

Conclusion Employed literature: ö encyclopaedia of animals ö ö ö ö ö ö ö