Summations Only

Actually, it would be dendritic pattern. That is a pattern similar to the veins in a leaf.Those 'islands' were probably never islands at all except for the ones that occurred after a meander loop was abandoned. The rough pattern of minor peaks and saddles occurred when minor tributaries and fractures intersected to make a bunch of random culminations.There is also some evidence of a trellis type of pattern caused by fractures and faults. The Bright Angel Canyon is one of them. It follows a nice straight fault line. Wikipedia gives a bit of an incomplete treatment here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_system_(geomorphology)Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix link. The system doesn't seem to like having ( in URLs.

Just a bit of geophilosophy. I figure that I'm old enough to stir the pot a little bit with some outlandish remarks.But think of it this way... Is the Colorado Plateau a mountain? Is the Kaibab Uplift a mountain? Well, you have to stretch the definition a bit...Will they become mountains over time? Most certainly. And why?

The canyon's sinuous shape is not dictated by fractures or any other rock structure. Period.

AFAIK, cracks are fractures. I responded. Those are eroded continental lakebeds composed mostly of volcanic ash. They are not laterally extensive and are not mountains, they are badlands.

The Colorado River's sinuous course has no relationship to cracks in any strata. That is practically the definition of a meandering stream.And why are these rocks cracked anyway. I thought they were sort'a, kind'a soft, but not so much soft. Please describe the process of cracks forming in these rocks.

Exactly.

It doesn't really matter what it is called. It could be a minor ridgeline or a low hill or a small mountain. By itself, it is an insignificant feature. Yes, I do; but not all "flat" layering occurs in lakes.And remember seeing a picture is not like being there.I'm not sure what to make of the rest of your post. In general, it doesn't make sense and is loaded with insinuations and misunderstandings. It seems like you haven't even read my posts or many of the others offered here. It is a rambling manifesto. Try to focus a little bit more.

Mea culpa. Okay, the Colorado Plateau has some mountain ranges in it but much of it is a large, 'flat' surface of relatively low relief. As you drive down the south edge, the Mogollon Rim, you get into a very mountainous and irregular terrain. Why is that so? Simple: it's erosion of the plateau at its edges. What do you think will happen to the region in the next 60 million years? My contention is that it will become more and more irregular as rivers cut more deeply into the plateau.I could be wrong.Think of it this way. If you didn't have erosion, you would just get flat highlands. What if there were no erosion of the modern Front Range in Colorado after its most recent uplift? There would be no Pikes Peak, no Mt. Evans, etc. Just a big wall of rock. And there are other such things than the CP in other parts of the world.This topic is pertinent to most of our discussions because erosion is the forgotten process in geology and yet is so important as this discussion with Faith shows. And yet this particular point is kind of esoteric. I only bring it up to emphasize the point of erosion being so important.

In geometry, braids conform more nearly to the course of the stream. They are nearly parallel. There can be braided geometries within the dendritic pattern, but mainly braided streams indicate high sediment loads that overload the stream. Water must continually find routes through and around the sediments that it is trying to move. Okay, perhaps I misused the term. What I mean is a high point or the collection of high points after a pattern of erosion has removed material from the sedimentary deposit. I did not intend for it to mean anything actually rising due to a fold. In a sense. However, for Faith to say that the stream was 18 miles wide and then decreased in width as the water source depleted is ridiculous. The width of the canyon is dictated by its ease of bank erosion. In the case of the GC, there are enough weak layers that the average slope is not steep even though there are precipitous cliffs. There a numerous canyons on earth that are very deep but not so wide because the rocks are more competent.So yes, the area was quite flat when the meanders formed. But the river was not that wide.Meanders usually form where this is no structural influence on the stream geometry. You will notice that I carefully stated the "main course of the river" is not due to any kind of fractures or faults. As its tributaries cut more deeply into the rock they will encounter some features such as the Bright Angel fault and exploit that weakness.Added by edit by Adminnemooseus - Braided river at wikipedia: Braided river - WikipediaEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Added by edit by Adminnemooseus

Correct. Both the Coconino Plateau and the Coconino Sandstone are named after Coconino County which is probably named after something else.

Here is a good, brief explanation of braided streams:

Heh, heh ...I've heard that the maximum depth of the Great Salt Lake is 30 feet.I guess Faith never heard of playa lakes. The average depth of Hudson Bay is only about 100 meters.And I wonder where Faith thinks all of those perfectly flat areas of the midwest (US) came from.Edited by edge, : No reason given.

There is no (meaning "none-zero-nada") trained geologist who expects to find an absolutely continuous record of the earth in a stratigraphic column. Only YECs say that such a thing should exist.This is an egregious strawman argument and only proves someone's ignorance of the topic.And, just to tie in our previous subthread, erosion is the main culprit in chopping up the global stratigraphy. I suppose that is why YECs must ignore the process of erosion.

The top layer is mostly Kaibab in both places.

Nevertheless, these are lake bottoms and they wouldn't have dessication cracks if the water was still present.