西内SINE

幻影牧场下游是毗瑟奴片岩，我来到下面就看到了。它应该很容易被找到，因为它是黑色的，而且和河流在同一水平线上。这是地球上发现的最古老的东西。它最初是在这个美洲超级大陆上的某个区域的无机沉积物和熔岩。当该大陆与南极洲和澳大利亚附近的火山岛相撞时，这种混合物被挤下去了，埋在了其它物质的下面了。那次碰撞持续不断，形成了比落基山脉和阿尔卑斯山脉更高的山脉，把其它物质压在了下面。现在的样子就是这样形成的。随着大陆漂移的持续，它到达了大峡谷。这几乎发生在地球上生命开始之前，这也就解释了为什么毗湿奴片岩中没有化石。它几乎有20亿年的历史了。我们所能碰到的唯一比这更古老的东西就来自月球，这就是为什么我们认为月球是这样诞生的，一颗流星击中了现在太平洋所在的地方，从地球上撞出一块月球大小的土块。
Downstream from Phantom Ranch is Vishnu Schist that I came down to bottom to see. It should be easy to find because it is black and the same level as the River. It is the oldest stuff on earth anyone has found. It began as inorganic sediments and lava in an area of the big ancient supercontinent America was in. When that continent ran into volcanic islands near Antartica and Australia, this mixture got pushed down and buried under other material. That collision continued and led to mountains higher than the Rockies or Alps that pressed down on the material. That made it change into what it is now. With continued continental drift, it arrived here at Grand Canyon. This happened mostly before life on earth began, and explains why there are no fossils in the Vishnu Schist. It's almost two billion years old. The only thing older that anybody has touched is from the moon, which is why we think the moon was born when a meteor hit where the Pacific Ocean is now and knocked a moon size clod out of earth.