Question: When did the formation of the Grand Canyon begin by the body of water that carved a channel through it?

full_context: Document 1: Colorado River: Colorado River The Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend, Arizona, a few miles below Glen Canyon Dam Countries United States, Mexico States Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Baja California, Sonora Tributaries - left Fraser River, Blue River, Eagle River, Roaring Fork River, Gunnison River, Dolores River, San Juan River, Little Colorado River, Bill Williams River, Gila River - right Green River, Dirty Devil River, Escalante River, Kanab River, Virgin River, Hardy River Cities Glenwood Springs, CO, Grand Junction, CO, Moab, UT, Page, AZ, Bullhead City, AZ, Lake Havasu City, AZ, Yuma, AZ, San Luis Rio Colorado, SON Source La Poudre Pass - location Rocky Mountains, Colorado, United States - elevation 10,184 ft (3,104 m) - coordinates 40 ° 28 ′ 20 ''N 105 ° 49 ′ 34'' W ﻿ / ﻿ 40.47222 ° N 105.82611 ° W ﻿ / 40.47222; - 105.82611 Mouth Gulf of California - location Colorado River Delta, Baja California -- Sonora, Mexico - elevation 0 ft (0 m) - coordinates 31 ° 54 ′ 00 ''N 114 ° 57 ′ 03'' W ﻿ / ﻿ 31.90000 ° N 114.95083 ° W ﻿ / 31.90000; - 114.95083 Coordinates: 31 ° 54 ′ 00 ''N 114 ° 57 ′ 03'' W ﻿ / ﻿ 31.90000 ° N 114.95083 ° W ﻿ / 31.90000; - 114.95083 Length 1,450 mi (2,334 km) Basin 246,000 sq mi (637,137 km) Discharge for mouth (average virgin flow), max and min at Topock, AZ, 300 mi (480 km) from the mouth - average 22,500 cu ft / s (637 m / s) - max 384,000 cu ft / s (10,900 m / s) - min 422 cu ft / s (12 m / s) Map of the Colorado River basin Wikimedia Commons: Colorado River
Document 2: Mars: The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for ``Mariner Valleys '', also known as Agathadaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of 4,000 km (2,500 mi) and a depth of up to 7 km (4.3 mi). The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one - fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only 446 km (277 mi) long and nearly 2 km (1.2 mi) deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where 150 km (93 mi) of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two - tectonic plate arrangement.
Document 3: Owens River Gorge: The Owens River Gorge is a steep 10 mi (16 km) canyon on the upper Owens River in eastern California in the United States. The canyon is located at the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Mono County, along the stretch of the river where it exits the Long Valley near its source and enters the north end of Owens Valley. The gorge is a popular destination for rock climbing.
Document 4: Grand Canyon: Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down - cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.
Document 5: Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon (Hopi: Ongtupqa; Yavapai: Wi: kaʼi: la, Navajo: Tsékooh Hatsoh, Spanish: Gran Cañón) is a steep - sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet or 1,857 meters).
Document 6: Candor Chasma: Candor Chasma is one of the largest canyons in the Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars. The feature is geographically divided into two halves: East and West Candor Chasmas, respectively. It is unclear how the canyon originally formed; one theory is that it was expanded and deepened by tectonic processes similar to a graben, while another suggests that it was formed by subsurface water erosion similar to a karst. MRO discovered sulfates, hydrated sulfates, and iron oxides in Candor Chasma.
Document 7: Grand Canyon National Park: Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than six million recreational visitors in 2017, which is the second highest count of all American national parks after Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979.
Document 8: Geology: All of these processes do not necessarily occur in a single environment, and do not necessarily occur in a single order. The Hawaiian Islands, for example, consist almost entirely of layered basaltic lava flows. The sedimentary sequences of the mid-continental United States and the Grand Canyon in the southwestern United States contain almost-undeformed stacks of sedimentary rocks that have remained in place since Cambrian time. Other areas are much more geologically complex. In the southwestern United States, sedimentary, volcanic, and intrusive rocks have been metamorphosed, faulted, foliated, and folded. Even older rocks, such as the Acasta gneiss of the Slave craton in northwestern Canada, the oldest known rock in the world have been metamorphosed to the point where their origin is undiscernable without laboratory analysis. In addition, these processes can occur in stages. In many places, the Grand Canyon in the southwestern United States being a very visible example, the lower rock units were metamorphosed and deformed, and then deformation ended and the upper, undeformed units were deposited. Although any amount of rock emplacement and rock deformation can occur, and they can occur any number of times, these concepts provide a guide to understanding the geological history of an area.
Document 9: Outflow channels: Outflow channels are extremely long, wide swathes of scoured ground on Mars, commonly containing the streamlined remnants of pre-existing topography and other linear erosive features indicating sculpting by fluids moving downslope. Channels extend many hundreds of kilometers in length and are typically greater than one kilometer in width; the largest valley (Kasei Vallis) is around long, greater than wide and exceeds in depth cut into the surrounding plains. These features tend to appear fully sized at fractures in the Martian surface, either from chaos terrains or from canyon systems or other tectonically controlled, deep graben, though there are exceptions. Besides their exceptional size, the channels are also characterized by low sinuosities and high width:depth ratios compared both to other Martian valley features and to terrestrial river channels. Crater counts indicate that most of the channels were cut since the early Hesperian, though the age of the features is variable between different regions of Mars. Some outflow channels in the Amazonis and Elysium Planitiae regions have yielded ages of only tens of million years, extremely young by the standards of Martian topographic features.
Document 10: Geological history of Earth: The geological history of Earth follows the major events in Earth's past based on the geologic time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk - shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun, which also created the rest of the Solar System.
Document 11: Grand Canyon National Park: Grand Canyon National Park IUCN category II (national park) Grand Canyon from the South Rim at dawn Location Coconino and Mohave counties, Arizona, United States Nearest city Fredonia, Arizona (North Rim) Tusayan, Arizona (South Rim) Coordinates 36 ° 03 ′ 19 ''N 112 ° 07 ′ 19'' W ﻿ / ﻿ 36.0552608 ° N 112.1218355 ° W ﻿ / 36.0552608; - 112.1218355 Coordinates: 36 ° 03 ′ 19 ''N 112 ° 07 ′ 19'' W ﻿ / ﻿ 36.0552608 ° N 112.1218355 ° W ﻿ / 36.0552608; - 112.1218355 Area 1,217,262 acres (4,926.08 km) Established February 26, 1919 (1919 - 02 - 26) Visitors 6,254,238 (in 2017) Governing body National Park Service Website Grand Canyon National Park ``The template Infobox UNESCO World Heritage Site is being considered for merging. ''UNESCO World Heritage Site Criteria Natural: vii, viii, ix, x Reference 75 Inscription 1979 (3rd Session)
Document 12: SS Grand Canyon State (T-ACS-3): SS "Grand Canyon State" (T-ACS-3) is a crane ship in ready reserve for the United States Navy. The ship was named for the state of Arizona, which is also known as the "Grand Canyon State".
Document 13: Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon is a river valley in the Colorado Plateau that exposes uplifted Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata, and is also one of the six distinct physiographic sections of the Colorado Plateau province. It is not the deepest canyon in the world (Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal is much deeper). However, the Grand Canyon is known for its visually overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape. Geologically, it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are well preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.
Document 14: Gore Canyon: Gore Canyon is a short isolated canyon on the upper Colorado River in southwestern Grand County, Colorado in the United States. The steep and rugged canyon, approximately 3 miles (5 km) long, was carved by the river as it passed the northern end of the Gore Range southwest of Kremmling. The Colorado descends from approximately to approximately over the length of the canyon. The steep walls ascend approximately on either side. The canyon effectively marks the southwestern end of the Middle Park basin in north central Colorado.
Document 15: Hells Canyon: Hells Canyon is a 10 - mile (16 km) wide canyon located along the border of eastern Oregon, eastern Washington and western Idaho in the United States. It is part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and is North America's deepest river gorge at 7,993 feet (2,436 m).
ground_truth: about 5 to 6 million years ago
sub_queries: what river carved the mile deep channel that is the grand canyon Answer: Colorado River
when did Colorado River start to form the grand canyon Answer: about 5 to 6 million years ago