The Fascinating Geology and Fossils of Redwall Cavern in the Grand Canyon 

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What a stunning place to visit. The scale of this cavern is just monumental! Love to see the crinoids. Seemingly these populated the world's sea beds for hundreds of millions of years. I live just 3 miles away from some spectacular Carboniferous limestone in the UK, packed out with crinoids and various corals. Always makes my morning dog walks pretty interesting.😂

Red Wall Cavern is HUGE, judging by the size of the people at the far wall. It was interesting to see some of the more recent areas that are forming small new caverns as the process continues. Thank you for another great video, Professor!

Absolutely fascinating walk through time in this magnificent area of the country . Thanks for showing it to us Shawn from a geologist point of view.

Awesome video, this is now a bucket list location. Thanks for sharing!

I have seen there in 88 and 90. My husband played volley ball inside the cavern. You are in for a geologist treat downstream. Thanks for the memories with Canyon Magic.

Nothing like an immense landscape to make you realise how tiny we are… thank you Shawn

Again, the "paleo map" is an excellent visual to understanding the landform during deposition! Thanks for your efforts Sir!

Finally a video about this place without stupid music that is educational thank you.

Another great video with great views and interesting study of trace fossils in the rock. Those fossils really help us understand the enviroment and subsequent age of the rocks themselves. I love this stuff. Thanx!

Fantastic raft trip that you and your friends were on. Seeing the canyon walls from that perspective. Thanks for sharing.

Keep making great content!

You've reached far back in time at this point! Very interesting to see the chert layer and crinoid fossils. And what a cavern! Spectacular! Thank you for this continued adventure.

I'm living very close to a limestone formation from the Middle Devonian (the Massenkalk Limestone in the Rhenish Massif) which is full of these crinoid fossils. I did already know that the small fragments looking like pipe segments (or washers) were crinoids but that the rectangular things like at @8:20 were also crinoid fragments I didn't. Always wondered what they were - now I know. Thanks very much for making me learn something new about my own region.

Coming off a 2 hour Oman Ophiolite binge. Mountains made of mantle is cray cray

I have a pic from inside the cavern looking out and upstream from 1972. Hasn't changed much (not a long time geologically). Thanks for the walk through memory lane.

Thanks for taking me along

Very nice professor 👍

Thank you ! I really enjoy learning about the local geology on your adventures.

Thanks Shawn, I really enjoy your way of sharing your knowledge. I am saving some places to visit thanks to your vlogs. Subscribed.

Yay! Another great geo-adventure. Thx Prof ✌🏻

You have such a good camera technique, thanks, composition is fine with minimal wobble. A real lucky guy you are to visit up close these out of world places. Envious am I.

Fantastic! Thank you!

Excellent Shawn, thank you.

I would be curious to study an excavation here. I would assume that you would find some well rounded boulders in the depths of the cavern. Carved out when the canyon walls fall in and temporarily dam the flow. Though, it may have increased in size to the point that those rocks have been washed out.

We had an ocean view in Minnesota for a while! 😉 Amazing to imagine.

WOW Great video, Thanks

The sand when I was there was as fine as flour; there were ant lions; and in the very back, a friend played his harmonica.... ❤

The Grand Canyon, a wonder of the world !! ......That cave is so incredibly huge. So the chirt is in layers rather than in noduls ? Nice visit video Shawn. Thanks.

Great location! Wish I were there! Thx!

Just bought your book, Geology Underfoot, at the Visitor Center in Twin Falls Idaho! Looking forward to a great read!

Hi Shawn, please look up some papers by Carol Hill and Victor Polyak, and Peter Huntoon - for a slightly different hypothesis on the origins of maze caves (older, that formed at great depth below the water table) in the Redwall, and also a more conventional karst (stream caves from sinking streams on the pleateau) that formed later. Thank you for your contributions....

Thanks!

Love, love seeing the fossils. Another of your 5 star videos shared on my FB time line as a post. Gave them direction on where to find you on RU-vid. 👍

NICE as always

As Harvey Butchart would (have) said "The Grand Canyon is one badass hole in the ground"

I enjoy your videos.

*CRINOID* - FYI, there is a Wikipedia entry for the fossil mentioned near the end of Shawn's video.

WOW jest wow thank you

I camped there on a river trip, never mind just when or with whom. Pretty cool place to be at night.

Nice!

Thanks for the video! I'd love to take a trip like that some day. Question for you: The mountain near my home in Utah is made of Mississippian age limestones (mostly Great Blue Limestone unit) and the limestones are, like the name suggests, very bluish-gray to tan in color. What would account for the dramatic difference in color between the two limestones? I'm assuming the red coloring of the Redwall limestone is due to the presence of iron, but where does the iron come from and why isn't it present in the limestones just a few hundred miles to the north?

great place to play music-lucky enough to do it 9 times.

Fabulous place. I'm wondering if the chert is of a quality that would have been used for napping (flint napping) of tools. I know that sometimes chert was used if flint or obsidian were not available. Yes my anthropology training is waking up. I'm trained in cultural. However at the lay level it is paleoanthropolgy that gathers the most attention. I was prevented from finishing my masters, so made my career in education, which as an undergrad I did a duel major in along with an anthropology major. Now that it is much easier to research with the internet I'm gradually digging into paleoanthropolgy. But geology is still first, grins. I did 18 credits of geography. Not doing 2 more for a minor was a mistake I made.

Reminds me of Ash Cave in Ohio.

The site has the river cutting into the rock walls.

❤

Looks like that place gets a lot of traffic based on the footprints in the sand. Kind of surprising to me

Thank you! I recommend a book titled THE EMERALD MILE;the epic story of the fastest ride in history through the heart of the Grand Canyon. By Kevin Fedarko. This book has it all!!!!

Are you still in the Grand Canyon? If so, what risks are posed by the tropical storm approaching Baja California and Southern California? Any risk of flash floods in the side canyons?

👍

Surprised by the "red" limestone. I'm only familiar with gray limestone.

Why is the chert fractured so angularly? shouldnt those rocks be smoother from the river/sand erosion? It almost looks freeze-cracked. I thought cherts will form in rounded nodule blobs not layers blocks and chunks... interesting.

Can I ask? Where did you get your degree? And the title of your thesis.

Oddly, crinoids are not extinct. Here's a video... "Crinoid facts: sea lilies and feather stars | Animal Fact Files"

Thanks!