The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd)

[P. Cooper]

I don't think this has been mentioned yet:

The oldest rock formation in the Grand Canyon, which lies at the very
bottom, is called Visnu Schist.  These metamorphic rocks are
approximately 2 billion years old, and they apparently formed the base of
an ancient mountain range.

According to a fairly recent article on the geology of the Grand Canyon,
Visnu Schist was first identified by this name in an 1890 article in the
Bulletin of the American Geological Society by Charles D. Walcott.
However, a brief survey of this article yielded no mention of how or why
Visnu schist got its name.  Incidentally, there is a granite intrusion
associated with the Visnu schist that is called Zoroaster Granite.
This name can be traced to work done in 1938 by men named Campbell and
Mason, but I haven't looked into their reasons for coming up with it.

Paul Cooper