Filling the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon filled with milk.
Graphic by Christian Espanol.

Have you ever wondered what it would take to fill the Grand Canyon? What about filling the Grand Canyon with your favorite food, trash, money, or other material? I have collected some data and have the information below. Lots of interesting facts and way too much math late at night have produced some interesting facts.

The website eHow.com has come up with a volume for the Grand Canyon of 2098.5 cu.mi. (308,892,672,000,000 cu.ft.) with an average depth of 4000 feet, though they are quick to point out that this is a very rough estimate. The calculations do not include many of the points, outcroppings, peaks, plateaus, and other geologic features. Also, the imaginary materials used to fill the Canyon are dismissing the fact that the huge weight load would crush, and therefore decrease the volume, of most materials at the bottom.

If you were able to dam rivers to fill the Canyon, the time for each river to fill it would be:

• Colorado River after Glen Canyon Dam  -  327 years at 30,000 cu.ft./s.
• Colorado River before Glen Canyon Dam  -  115.5 years at 85,000 cu.ft./s.
• Niagra River at Niagra Falls - 147 years at 4 million cu.ft./s.
• Mississippi  River - 17 years at 572,000 cu.ft./s.
• Nile River -  63 years at 154,750 cu.ft./s.
• Amazon River - Almost 10 years at 984,251 cu.ft./s. during the rainy season

If you fill Grand Canyon with fresh water, it would be the second deepest continental lake in the world and the fourth largest continental lake by volume. Grand Canyon can hold:

• All the freshwater of Lake Michigan-Huron.
• Lake Ontario 5 times over.
• Lake Erie 16 times over.
• Lake Tahoe 58 times over.
   
• Grand Canyon Lake can meet the water needs (drink, food, hygiene, etc.) of the entire world's population of 2009 for over 10.5 years!

 To fill the Grand Canyon with goods:

• The world would need to stop buying Coca-Cola products for 13,608 years at 2007 rates. I could not find rates for Pepsi Cola Products (sorry Pepsi fans).
• World milk production would need to be diverted for 1.8 million years at 2006 rates.
• 131 thousand years' worth of 1990 US trash production assuming 3 cu.yd. per ton of garbage.
• Almost 6 billion General Sherman size Giant Sequoia trees would be needed to fill the Canyon with wood.
• A Gas Station with the Grand Canyon as a holding tank could fuel every United States motor vehicle for 2007 for over 16,000 years.

Other interesting facts:

• It would take more than 44 trillion people at about 7 cu.ft. to fill the Grand Canyon. The world population is still under 7 billion.
• Enough helium could be held in a tank the size of Grand Canyon to lift more than 1.5 billion Spirit of Goodyear blimps.
• The building with the most volume, Boeing's Everett Factory, could fit in the Grand Canyon 654 thousand times.
• It would take 1 million cows almost 200,000 years to fill the canyon with methane.
• If Loch Ness really does have a monster, than Loch Grand Canyon could be home 1166 monsters.
• The office space of over 8.3 million Empire State Buildings could be built in the Grand Canyon.