Details Relating to McKee’s Proposal
565. 
Layering,
Limestone,
Why Here? 
Why So “Recently”?
Marble Canyon,
Distant Cavern Connection,
Perpendicular Faults,
Arching,
Inner Gorge,
Missing Talus,
Colorado Plateau,
Unusual Erosion,
Nankoweap Canyon. Same as item 531.
566.
Side Canyons,
Barbed Canyons,
Slot Canyons. Same as item 532.
567.
Forces, Energy, and Mechanisms. Since 1960, geologists have claimed that plate tectonics provides the forces, energy, and mechanisms that made the Grand Canyon.80 Supposedly, a hypothetical subducting plate (named the Farallon plate), which has since vanished, dove from the Pacific Ocean down about 1,000 miles into the mantle and 1,000 miles eastward. These geologists admit that the plate acted differently from any other plate; it supposedly crushed and buckled the Rocky Mountains81 but only lifted the Colorado Plateau. Never explained is why the mountains’ layers crushed and buckled but an adjacent plateau and its horizontal layers rose.
[Response: Subduction is a myth. Table 4 on page 174 summarizes 17 reasons “Why Plates Have Not Subducted.” Besides, the very slowly moving plates do not have the energy to lift mountains or plateaus even one inch. See Endnote 45 on page 204.]
568.
Missing River. McKee proposed that the early Colorado River flowed southeast along the path now occupied by the Little Colorado River. That would require the river to flow uphill, over the continental divide, to reach the Rio Grande. “Studies along this postulated course have failed to yield any evidence of southeastward drainage.”82
Many geologists are not embarrassed to claim, with no supporting evidence, that rivers once flowed in directions that today would be uphill, over mile-high mountains. These geologists simply claim that, with millions of years, things could have been different.
To be sure, today that would be impossible, for the Colorado River would have had to run uphill. But what is now uphill, in a geologic yesterday, may well have been downhill. Even geologists must remind themselves that the present is merely one insignificant moment out of hundreds of millions of years.83
Outside of geology, certainly in the applied sciences, such wild, unscientific speculation would result in canceled contracts, rejected proposals, disbelief, or laughter.
569.
Kaibab Plateau. This proposal also requires a river west of the Grand Canyon to carve eastward (upstream) 130 miles. Supposedly, the river climbed over high cliffs and plateaus by headward erosion and captured the water of the early Colorado River in north-central Arizona. “No one has lived long enough to see even one stream work its way upslope and capture another.” 84
The Grand Wash Cliffs mark the western boundary of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau. Those 4,000-foot cliffs would have been the first major obstacle if headward erosion occurred. Other canyons cut only slightly into the Grand Wash Cliffs. If headward erosion were so efficient in cutting a path for the Colorado River, it should have been equally efficient for other canyons directly north, because they had similar weather and rocks.85
Had 130 miles of headward erosion occurred, the basin that contains the Hualapai Limestone would have been quickly filled with sediments from that excavation. Little room would have remained for depositing limestone.86
570.
Missing Mesozoic Rock. Same as item 535.
571.
Fossils. Same as item 536.
572.
Tipped Layers below the Great Unconformity. Same as item 537.
573.
Time or Intensity? Same as item 538.