Abstract:
Grand Canyon National Park is a geologic experience like no other. Each year, many of the park's 5 million visitors attend ranger-led interpretive programs to learn how the spectacular scenery formed. It is crucial for interpretive park rangers at'Grand Canyon to understand the geologic history of the region and be able to effectively communicate it to park visitors. Amazingly, Grand Canyon National Park, a park with world-renowned geology, presently has little formal geology training available for its interpretive park rangers. Interpretive park rangers are often educated in fields other than geology and may not feel comfortable presenting geologic information to park visitors. But at Grand Canyon, discussion of geology is important and unavoidable. There is abundant technical literature regarding Grand Canyon geology, however this information is difficult for rangers to comprehend without prior geologic education. To alleviate this situation, this illustrated geology training manual has been developed for the interpretive park rangers at Grand Canyon. The first section of this training manual introduces the reader to the "language" of geology by providing illustrated explanations of fundamental geology concepts that are important and applicable at Grand Canyon. These concepts are then applied to the geology found in the Grand Canyon region, as the "language" of geology is used to read the "book" of Grand Canyon geology in the second section. The third and final section is intended to help interpretive park rangers learn to effectively communicate the geologic history of Grand Canyon to park visitors.
