EARTH'S BIGGEST SHOW-OFFS

It's a funny thing to think of the natural wonders of planet Earth as showoffs, but if you're ever lucky enough to witness the awe-inspiring scale of the Grand Canyon, once you've picked your jaw up out of the red dust, the whole mile deep, 18-mile-wide, billions-of-years-old rock schtick starts to feel faintly ridiculous.

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OUR POSING PLANET, PERSONIFIED

Why did the Colorado River spend over 6 million years carving this humongous passage through the desert when it surely could have found an easier way to get from the mountains to the Gulf of Mexico? Or was this just a setup to impress an evolved species of primate in its far future?