Flagstaff Festival of Science | Going With the Flow: The Wayward Course of the Colorado River Through Time

Through the last 70 million years the Colorado River has evolved, changed its flow direction, and added tributaries. And our geologic understanding of the rivers history is also changing. Ancestors to the modern river system could only have come into being after the withdrawal of the Western Interior Seaway, about 70 million years ago. At this time, the ancestors flowed northeast. Geologists “lose sight” of the river by about 33 million years ago and it does not reappear until about 5 million years ago, when it is making its way to the Gulf of California. Join geologist Wayne Ranney for a fascinating look of how the Colorado River evolved.
Location: Lowell Observatory, at the Giclas Lecture Hall in the Steele Visitor Center, 1400 W Mars Hill Rd.