But the Grand Canyon is impressive primarily as an extreme localized absence of rocks. If everyone who came along took some rocks, future generations would have an even Grander Canyon to enjoy!
mostly tongue in cheek…
Sad news on this story: looks like the park service caved and will allow Snelling to take rocks.
Why do I have the urge to scatter Mt Mazama tuffs down at the bottom? …
that would be awesome
Interesting. He thinks that 60 rocks from the Grand Canyon will prove Noah is our ancestor. Yeah, okay.
Quis sciscitur ipsos sciscitatores?
Why is this “sad news” to you? I understand that Snelling is something of a loon, but I suspect no one is going to notice or miss those 60 rocks, and I say this as a semi-regular visitor to the Grand Canyon.
It ain’t about the rocks.
This guy’s more interested in the Rock of Ages than the ages of rocks!
-joke cheerfully stolen
60 rocks today, 120 rocks tomorrow … eventually the Pastifarians are going to want to set off an atomic bomb … it’s just a bad precedent …
These aren’t the first rocks removed, right? The precedent was already set, by someone else, wasn’t it?
Hell, the whole damn canyon is rock-removal process that’s been going on for millions of years.
I gather this guy thinks it took a couple of months, tops.
Please read the thread.
I am aware of the extreme legalist credentials of American culture, but one must wonder at what point was it OK just to wander about taking a rock here and a rock there for one’s cabinet of curiosities with nothing but apathy from ‘authorities’ ? 1850 ? 1900 ? 1950 ? 1990 ?
It’s one thing to protect a national area from defacement, such as advertising or painting boulders; another to prevent non-commercial removal of rocks and minerals from some place billions of years old — and which authorities and government though they endure 500 years, are there for merely an eye-blink in the Canyon’s passage.
Absolutely, a lot of rocks have been removed … these are held in universities and museums around the world … to the point where if anyone wants to study Grand Canyon rocks, they need only travel to their local university and study them, no need to chip out anymore at the original site …
The problem is these universities and museums are going to want to know what a person is studying before they let them fondle the holdings … and understandably these universities and museums are going to exercise some discretion about what they approve of and what they disapprove of … just some Joe off the street who’s curious about how well 14th Century manuscripts burn is going to be denied … there’s no scientific merit to such an experiment …
So, you’ve “hit the nail on the head” … there’s plenty of rocks already outside the park for study … simply upstream or downstream … what specific scientific reason is there to take rocks from inside the Park? … other than publicity for a profoundly crackpot idea …
I don’t have to collect ejecta material from within Crater Lake NP … I’ve more than enough right here in my vegetable garden …
Hey, you can’t trust ivory-tower liberal nonChristian universities to hand over the real Canyon rocks. They’d first take out all the God-dust and replace it with evilution-powder! No, it’s real rocks from the source or nothing!
(“Nothing” possibly being preferable, since Snelling can then claim a conspiracy to suppress bible evidence.)
Personally, I look forward to the Grand Canyon Newsletter (I assume such a publication exists) publishing Snelling’s results in their April 1st issue.
I would think that, given recent events, it would be self-evident to leftists that you don’t want the government picking and choosing which research projects / scientists to allow and which ones to disallow, but apparently I’m mistaken. 
Yes, yes you are.
“Scientists.” Snelling isn’t one.
Personally, I think the Park Service should have pitched him over the North Rim and told him to examine anything he wanted on the way down.
There are approximately five billion people in the world more qualified than Snelling to study Grand Canyon rocks. So the question isn’t “who’s going to miss 60 rocks?”; it’s “who’s going to miss 300 billion rocks?”.
Yes, you are mistaken … picking up rocks on BLM land is allowed for any and all non-commercial purposes (within reason, and in this context the 60 rocks are free for the picking) … what you seemed to have missed is that the choice of research projects has already been made … within any National Park, all the rocks are to stay in place and we’re seeing what happens … outside the National Park we’re pretty much free to pick up a few rocks for study and we’re seeing what happens there …
I’d let someone look for God dust on most of my own property … but not under my house … if the researchers insists that they have to tear down my house to do their research, I’m going to say no … it’s the same with Us the People, show us why the rocks have to come from the National Park and not from the Hualapai Indian Reservation just a few inches downstream … or Us the People are going to say no …