Question

The Grand Canyon is enormous. It is 433 km long and has an average depth of 1.6 km. The US forest Service estimates its volume at 4.17 trillion (4.17*10^12) m3. Suppose dump trucks are lining up to fill the Grand Canyon. A small dump truck can carry approximately 20.5 m3 of sand. Suppose also that they can dump one load every 30 seconds. How many years would it take to fill the Grand Canyon?

Answer 1

193429.73 years

Step-by-step explanation:

Estimated volume of the grand canyon is 4.17 trillion
`m^(3)`

Capacity of truck is 20.5
`m^(3)`

It takes 30 seconds to deliver 1 load

number of loads that can fill up the Grand Canyon is
`(4.17 X 10^(12) )/(20.5) = 2.03 X 10^(11)`

Time taken to deliver the needed number of loads is

`30 seconds X 2.03 X 10^(11) = 6.1 X 10^(12) seconds`

Next, we convert the result from seconds to years:

Number of seconds in a year is

365 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60seconds = 31536000

Time taken in years =
`(6.1 X 10^(12) )/(31536000) = 193429.73 years`