Grand Canyon Carved by Flood Runoff, Not Lake Spillover

Science Update from ICR · Apr 27, 2026

A paper was recently published in Science that suggested a lake may have helped carve Grand Canyon.1 This hypothesis has been scattered throughout conventional literature since 1934 but hasn’t become largely accepted.2,3 Those that propose a lake’s involvement, or that of a series of lakes, recognize the need for more water than what the Colorado River alone could provide to remove over 1,000 cubic... More...