Talk:Canyon

Begin Talk

I got the impression from my school geography books that a gorge has a river running though it while a canyon doesn't have one. Does having (or not having) a river make any difference to the definition of the terms canyon or gorge?

I dont think so, there is a river running through the grand canyon and the elora gorge, and most gorges/canyons at one point had rivers or streams running though them to create them.say1988

As far as I know, gorge is the more common name in canada, though the article makes it sem canyon is. At least in southern ontario there are a number of gorges, erlora gorge for example, and no canyons that I know of. Also what is a ravine? it is redirected here, is it a sinonym (sp? word that means the same thing) or is there something tht makes something a ravine? say1988 14:51, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

presumably gorge redirects here, but I noted while looking something up that Chasm redirects to Rift, which isn't right; IMO it should redirect here, to canyon.Skookum1 (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Valles Marineris

Is it possible one could put in an image of this canyon on this page as well? If that is okay, how would I add the image along with the other pictures of the canyons? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FatalGravity (talk • contribs) 18:02, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

English canyons

Re: "Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. Limestone is to a certain extent soluble, so cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse a canyon is left, for example in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Moors in Yorkshire, England."

I've left this in place but I have misgivings about its accuracy or usefulness (even after I've changed the obviously incorrect Yorkshire Moors - not a limestone area - to the intended Yorkshire Dales). Does a strict definition of canyon include collapsed caves? Cheddar Gorge - presumably the intended example in the Mendip Hills - is (according to the Wikipedia article) not a collapsed cave anyway. What examples are intended in the Dales? Gordale Scar (also not, according to its article, a collapsed cave)? If these count as canyons (which I doubt) direct references would be more useful. Dave.Dunford 10:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, what is sonoma in the beginning of the article?

what affects things around Canyons

Deepest

By what measure is the Tsangpo the deepest gorge? I'm tempted to remove or drastically reword this unless there's a cite. In terms of the measure I just added (depth below highest peaks) it does not beat the Kali Gandaki. – Spireguy 23:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

what concerns me is that a popular choice as the worlds deepest Canyon the Cotahuasi Canyon a depth of approx 3354 meters isn't even mentioned, the title isn't specific enough does this include the Mariana trench? - Oct 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.68.231 (talk) 20:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Defile = Canyon?

Why does the Defile page redirect to the canyon page? Shouldn't defile get its own page since it has two vastly different definitions? Chris37599 (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Done (see Defile (geography). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

What evidence is there that defile is ever used in the UK? After 55 years of living and travelling around the UK, and being a lapsed FRGS, I have never heard that term used. 143.159.64.177 (talk) 11:25, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

List of canyons and gorges needs splitting off

The lists in the article need splitting off to a separate article, and I don't see the point in distinguishing between gorges adn canyons because the meanings vary and are largely indistinguishable; the third section "things that ahve canyon-like features" is a useless designation; some river-articles will or do have the canyons and gorges categories also, e.g. where there is no reason to have a separate canyon article from the river one, e.g .Cayoosh Creek, Bridge River, Chehalis River, where the river definitely has/ is in a canyon but there is no formally named canyon, or no need for a separate article. The lists are also VERY incomplete...the discussion of gorges vs canyons is highly specious and subjective and should be just deleted, and there are so many ways a canyon can be formed that trying to define them by formation is really quite useless and also constitutes original research.Skookum1 (talk) 15:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Palo Duro canyon

The Palo Duro reference links to an undefined page. This is most likely an intended link to Palo Duro Canyon, but that is in Texas, not Arizona, and there is no record of Pueblo activity in Palo Duro Canyon. Perhaps this sentence should be removed? Ityllux (talk) 04:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

In Turkey

There's a canyon in Usak, TR. It's the second biggest canyon on the world. Not eighteenth or seventeenth... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.179.177.238 (talk) 18:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

box canyon link

The box canyon link just takes you back to the top of the canyon page. Do we not have a page for box canyons? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

• Apparently there is no dedicated "box canyon" page. It's just a re-direct to canyon. I changed the "box canyon" link to italic text. Takeaway (talk) 11:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject

A WikiProject has been proposed for canyons; see here for details, please consider placing an opinion. Shannon^talk _contribs ^sign!_:) 15:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

"occasionally spelled cañon"

What the heck is that? Should we revise all the first lines in every article to show the foreign language spelling? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.185.84.11 (talk) 02:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It's quite a common spelling in 19th Century and early 20th Century English, actually, and even turns up in UK English today....Skookum1 (talk) 19:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Putting it back in. BP OMowe (talk) 00:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Contradiction between this article and Ravine

The opening sentence here defines a canyon as a type of ravine. However, Ravine defines a ravine as separate from a canyon. Which is correct? Kansan (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

My dictionary of geography defines a canyon as "a steep walled gorge, ravine or chasm cut by river action in which the depth considerably exceeds the width" and "common in areas of low precipitation". It also says "some canyons are produced in limestone terrain by the collapse of roofs of underground streams".

So a "canyon" appears to be a type of "ravine" and should be a separate article. I am also not convinced that "gorge" should redirect here as it is defined as a "deep and narrow chasm with rocky precipitous walls" whereas canyons can be on a much larger scale. There is also a regional aspect to this: in that "canyon" tends to be used in arid regions, especially in the US, whereas the term gorge occurs more generally. HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:08, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Europe is not a country

Europe is not a country. Did you know that? It seems you don't, whoever wrote the list of canyons. Why does it say "Blabla Canyon, Kosovo, Europe" but not "Grand Canyon, Arizona, United states, Northern America"? Skärpning! Fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.228.159.25 (talk) 13:19, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The reason why only Kosovo is the exception in this list is because of the status of its international recognition. It is not (yet) recognised by the UN but at the same time it can hardly still be called part of Serbia after Kosovo declared its independence. The present wording in this article is a compromise reflecting the situation concerning Kosovo's status. - Takeaway (talk) 13:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Table?

These lists are silly? Why separate things according to the name ascribed to them (canyon vs. gorge) if there is no difference as per the article text. Could this list be presented as a table, affording some summary information about each and sorting abilities? Canyon dimensions are vague owing to unclear start/end locations varying depths, and so forth, but an approximation would help. Columns could include name, location (text), coordinates near center (geo tagged), length, depth, volume, and slope.

Canyons and Gorges of the world

Name	Location	Coordinates	Length (km)	Depth (m)	Volume (km²)	Slope (m/km)
Grand Canyon	United States - Arizona	36.3°N 112.7°W / 36.3; -112.7	446	1800	4170000	1.4

ke4roh (talk) 07:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

File:BarrancaCobre.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Please define canyon

The article currently starts this way:

A canyon (occasionally spelled cañon) or gorge is a deep ravine between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river.

But the wikilink to "ravine" starts out by saying

A ravine is a landform smaller than a canyon....

So what on earth is a canyon. There is a newly discovered canyon on Greenland in the news today that is apparently the largest on earth, but I still have no idea what the definition of a canyon is.68.144.172.8 (talk) 13:06, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Lists section - Split proposed

The "Lists" section now includes more than 140 canyons, and it forms what I think is a disproportionately large part of this article. (The rest of the artictle has only about 60 lines of text). I suggest that this list section should be moved to the article "List of canyons", which currently redirects to the "Canyon" article. Then the redirect should be deleted. GeoWriter (talk) 12:15, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm relatively new to this article and not a geologist, but I support the idea. Jbening (talk) 01:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Go ahead - be bold! Don't wait for lazy ppl ;) Brian W. Schaller (talk) 05:43, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

I have copied and pasted the list of about 140 canyons in this article to List of canyons and removed half of the examples in this Canyon article. I intend to remove more examples GeoWriter (talk) 23:30, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Good work. Thought you'd move them all, or almost all of them, along with the related images. If you're planning to keep a top 10 most notable per continent, here are my top picks:

Americas: Antelope, Canyon de Chelly, Canyonlands, Escalante, Copper, Grand, Niagara, Royal Gorge, Waimea, Zion (have visited all these & many others not listed here, but missed Copper)

Australia: Carnarvon, Geikie, Karijini, Katherine, Kings, Murchison River, Palm Valley, Purnululu & West MacDonnell National Parks (have visited all but Kings)

No opinion or experience with canyons in the other continents. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 04:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Contradictions regarding deepest canyon

In this article:

   The deepest canyon in the world, the Indus Gorge 

In the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon article:

   [Yarlung] in Tibet, China, is the deepest canyon in the world

In the Cotahuasi Canyon article:

   [Cotahuasi] in Peru is the deepest canyon in the world

So which is it? – 188.192.220.91 (talk) 21:06, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Who wrote this?

This is as poor a write-up as can be. Who in the world wrote this up? It reads like pure mumbojumbo.

This ought to be rewritten in simple comprehendable English. 2601:545:100:1AE0:A9DD:759:64DB:135F (talk) 18:02, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

"Cañon" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Cañon and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 7#Cañon until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Geography

What are canyons 103.170.183.148 (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Added citation needed to deepest gorge claim

Hi all

I added a cite needed to the second entry, Kali Gandaki, as the claim was introduced by an IP and then tided up several years ago. It is uncited, and the entry at Kali Ghandaki gorge is also of similar age and has a dubious ref.

We clearly state that a gorge is from its upper banks to the river, NOT from the nearest mountain peak to the river level. National Geographic states the first entry, Yarlung Tsangpo is the deepest.https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/canyon/

Indeed, the peak claimed to make Kali Gandaki the deepest is beyond a ridge - the ridge would technically be the upper level, unless we go up, down, up down, etc. to find the nearest peak within 50km that we can claim makes our favourite canyon the deepest on earth.

After further research into the definitions of a canyon - including from the flat surface or the requirement of a canyon wall over 45° - there is a ridge between the canyon and the highest peak used to make the claim of deepest, and means that after the ridge the angle is less than 45° which appears to make the side height 800m lower than claimed Chaosdruid (talk) 15:16, 15 August 2024 (UTC)