Question

Walking on Air
Earth and Space Science Studies: Dynamics of Earth's Structure



Would you want the chance to feel as if you're levitating directly over the Grand Canyon? The Hualapai People predicted that tourists would flock to experience just such an ethereal sensation when they decided to build a glass-bottomed observation deck high above the canyon floor. The investment was a success, and the Hualapai Nation has welcomed more than 10 million visitors to the unique attraction since its opening in 2007.

The horseshoe-shaped deck called the Skywalk juts out 70 feet (about 21 meters) from the edge of the canyon's magnificent limestone walls. Steel beams anchored 46 feet (approximately 14 meters) into the rock support the Skywalk, which, at 4,000 feet (almost 1,220 meters) above the canyon floor, is about one and a half times as high as the top of the world's tallest building. From that height, the Colorado River, which traverses the bottom of the canyon, looks like a thin brown ribbon. Since the Skywalk is open to the sky, with glass walls and a glass floor, visitors may feel as if they are walking on air.

"This is something spectacular," said Sheri Yellowhawk, a former Tribal Council member who oversaw the building of the Skywalk in 2007.

Many tourists who have experienced the attraction agree: "The sheer drop is amazing, as is the view," said a visitor on the Tripadvisor website, "but it will bring out the goose bumps." Another wrote, "The view is incredible. You can see the Colorado River and amazing other views of the canyon. My knees were a little shaky but once you are out there, it is magnificent."

The idea for the Skywalk originated in 1996, when investor David Jin, who was already involved in businesses that brought tourists to the area, offered to build it with his own money. "Our thinking [was] that, if a human being could walk over the canyon, if they had the opportunity…[it would be] really something," Jin said. In April 2005, the partners began construction of the Skywalk off a rim at the western end of the Grand Canyon near Eagle Point, Arizona, on land that is part of the Hualapai Reservation, a territory of one million acres (almost 405,000 hectares) that extends 108 miles (about 174 kilometers) along the vast Grand Canyon.

The Hualapai Nation endeavored to help many of its 2,300 members increase their income through the Skywalk project. The Hualapai economy depends largely on cattle ranching, but also on monetary gains through tourism. Along with the Skywalk, the Hualapai also operate a river rafting tour service, a village where visitors can learn more about Hualapai and other Indigenous cultures in the area, restaurants, plus several other locations where tourists can enjoy the spectacular scenery of the canyon.

The Skywalk was officially opened to the public in 2007, but there remained ambivalence about the attraction in the Hualapai community. The project brought about controversy among Hualapai Elders who felt that it was desecrating sacred ground. The Hualapai believe that their ancestors emerged from the earth of the Grand Canyon, and that their sacred burial sites are situated around the area.

"We have disturbed the ground," said Dolores Honga, a Tribal Elder, who added, "It's spiritual ground."

Other members point to the benefits that the revenue accrued by the Skywalk and other tourism efforts have brought to their community, revenue that has funded the development of healthcare and childcare facilities, a cultural center, and tuition for Hualapai students to attend college.

"The Grand Canyon is deeply woven into our spirit, our heritage, and our culture," wrote Damon Clarke and Candida Hunter, former Tribal Council members, who added, "We have carefully balanced creating tourism experiences open to the public with stewarding the land, sky, and tranquility we hold so dear."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Write a narrative in your own words that describes what the Rock Layers in the Grand Canyon diagram in the Dig Deeper shows. Explain how that information betters your understanding of the news article that you read on page 1. Include words to describe time or sequence, as needed.


Type your answer in the text box below.




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Answer 1

The Rock Layers diagram shows the Grand Canyon like a giant layer cake. At the very top are younger, hard layers of rock (including limestone) that form the canyon rim. Below those are alternating bands of sandstone, shale, and additional limestones — some layers break into steep cliffs while softer layers erode into slopes. Farther down the canyon the diagram shows much older, highly altered basement rocks (metamorphic and igneous rocks) at the bottom. The layers are stacked in order of age: the youngest rocks are at the top and the oldest are deep at the bottom. The diagram also implies a long sequence of events: sediments were deposited in different environments (seas, deserts, rivers), then over hundreds of millions of years the layers were buried and hardened, the Colorado Plateau was uplifted, and finally the Colorado River cut downward through those layers to expose them.

Seeing this diagram helps me understand the news article in several ways. First, the article’s mention of the canyon’s “limestone walls” and the Skywalk’s anchors makes sense because the rim is made of strong limestone layers that can hold large steel beams driven into the rock. Second, the diagram explains why the river looks small from the Skywalk: the Colorado River has carved a deep trench through many stacked layers of rock, so from the rim the river appears as a thin ribbon far below. Third, knowing the layers formed over vast amounts of time connects to the Hualapai people’s feelings about the land: the diagram shows that the canyon itself is the result of long natural history, which helps explain why elders describe the ground as sacred and why disturbing it feels like disturbing a place tied to their ancestors. In short, the rock-layer diagram places the Skywalk and the dramatic views described in the article into a timeline of geological processes and helps me understand both the engineering choices and the cultural concerns.