Grand Canyon National Park to Dedicate the Trail of Time During Earth Science Week

The begin­ning of the Trail of Time at the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

In a ribbon-cutting cer­e­mony set for Wednes­day, Oct. 13, Grand Canyon National Park Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mar­tin, Chief of Inter­pre­ta­tion Judy Hellmich-Bryan, inter­pre­tive staff and spe­cial guests will ded­i­cate a new inter­pre­tive exhibit, the Trail of Time, on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Vis­i­tors are invited to attend the rib­bon cut­ting cer­e­mony at 2:30 p.m., adja­cent to Verkamp’s Vis­i­tor Cen­ter, fol­lowed by an infor­mal walk along the trail from 3 – 5 p.m. The event is one of sev­eral events planned by Grand Canyon National Park as part of Earth Sci­ence Week, Octo­ber 10 – 16.

The Trail of Time is an inter­pre­tive walk­ing time­line that focuses on Grand Canyon vis­tas and rocks and invites vis­i­tors to pon­der, explore, and under­stand the mag­ni­tude of geo­logic time and the sto­ries encoded by Grand Canyon rock lay­ers and landscapes.

The Trail of Time was devel­oped through a part­ner­ship between Grand Canyon National Park and the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico. The project was funded with a $2 mil­lion grant pro­vided by the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion. Pro­fes­sors Karl E. Karl­strom and Laura Crossey, Earth and Plan­e­tary Sci­ences Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, led a team com­prised of inter­pre­tive spe­cial­ists from the National Park Ser­vice and aca­d­e­mics from Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Mass­a­chu­setts in the design and devel­op­ment of the exhibit.

The exhibit fol­lows the exist­ing paved rim trail on the South Rim of Grand Canyon between Yava­pai Obser­va­tion Sta­tion and Grand Canyon Vil­lage and is marked by brass mark­ers every meter, rep­re­sent­ing one mil­lion years of time. View­ing tubes and other inter­pre­tive mate­ri­als help vis­i­tors con­nect the rocks vis­i­ble in Grand Canyon to their place along the geo­logic timeline.

The exhibit is part of Grand Canyon National Park’s efforts to improve and inte­grate geo­sciences into inter­pre­ta­tive pro­grams at the Grand Canyon with links to other parks in the region. The phys­i­cal Trail of Time is sup­ple­mented with an elec­tronic web-based com­po­nent called the “Vir­tual Trail of Time, found at http://tot.unm.edu/.” The Trail of Time employs cul­tur­ally respon­sive and inclu­sive con­tent and is part of a research pro­gram in infor­mal sci­ence edu­ca­tion aimed at under­stand­ing and improv­ing pub­lic cog­ni­tion of geo­logic time – the con­nec­tion between human time scales and the mil­lion year heart­beat of the Earth.

Chief of Inter­pre­ta­tion Hellmich-Bryan states, “The Trail of Time is a pow­er­ful tool that park staff can use to help vis­i­tors under­stand and con­nect with the story of Grand Canyon geol­ogy. Since its final instal­la­tion, park vis­i­tors have been very enthu­si­as­tic about the trail and are enjoy­ing the oppor­tu­nity to touch rocks from deep within the canyon.”

Other part­ners include Wells Resources, Inc. (Fort Collins, Colo.), project man­age­ment; Selinda Research Asso­ciates, Inc. (Chicago, Illi­nois), exhibit eval­u­a­tion; Jim Sells Design (Fort Collins, Colo.), exhibit design; and Hebrew Uni­ver­sity, Dart­mouth Col­lege and Lewis and Clark Col­lege, cog­ni­tion research.

”The Trail of Time project is a great rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a project that came about through work­ing in part­ner­ship with inter­ested orga­ni­za­tions. Part­ner­ships such as this allow the park to achieve things we could not do on our own,” said Super­in­ten­dent Martin.

Vis­i­tors are invited to walk the newly com­pleted Trail of Time. Start­ing just west of the Yava­pai Geol­ogy museum, vis­i­tors can walk back­ward in time from today toward the old­est rock in Grand Canyon, Elves Chasm gneiss (1,840 mil­lion years old) or begin east of Verkamp’s Vis­i­tor Cen­ter, walk­ing for­ward in time from 1,840 mil­lion years ago toward the youngest rock in the Grand Canyon, Kaibab Lime­stone (270 mil­lion years old).

In addi­tion to the ded­i­ca­tion of the Trail of Time, the park will present a vari­ety of spe­cial pro­grams dur­ing Earth Sci­ence Week on the park’s geol­ogy. Vis­i­tors can check any Grand Canyon National Park vis­i­tor cen­ter or park head­quar­ters for a com­plete sched­ule of events or they can also visit Trail of Time. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion on the Trail of Time, please con­tact Judy Hellmich-Bryan, Chief of Inter­pre­ta­tion and Resource Edu­ca­tion, at judy_hellmich-bryan@nps.gov.

Media con­tact: Steve Carr (505) 277‑1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu