Muav Formation beds are bent in the Matkatamiba fold exposed along the Colorado River in central Grand Canyon. Conventional geologists accept that this folding occurred during the Laramide orogeny at ~40–70 ma when the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. However, the Muav Formation had been deposited at 499–502 ma, so after ~450 million years it should have been fully cemented and lithified. Yet the limestone beds look as though they were bent smoothly while they were still unlithified and soft. Such a conclusion would be preposterous if there were ~450 million years between deposition of the Muav Formation and its deformation in the Matkatamiba fold. To investigate this further, Muav Formation samples were collected from the hinge and limb zones of the Matkatamiba fold, as well as samples many miles away from the fold. Macroscopic features that should be present if the Muav Formation beds in the fold had been bent via ductile deformation over millions of years are bedding plane slip, slickensides on bedding plane surfaces, thickening of hinge zones and thinning of limb zones, as well as more fracturing in the hinge zones compared to the limbs. At the microscopic scale there should be evidence of grain-boundary sliding, rotation and fracturing of grains, disruption of the calcite cement, and within many quartz grains there should be undulose extinction, deformation lamellae and deformation kink bands. Field observations are inconsistent with ductile deformation under low pressure-low temperature metamorphic conditions. While trivial localized bedding plane slip has occurred, no slickensides are found on any bedding plane surfaces. There is no thickening of beds in the hinge zones or thinning in the hinge zones. Fracturing is minimal throughout the fold and confined to within the laminae or are widely spaced, consistent with joint development due to shrinkage during dewatering. All these observed features have been replicated using damp soft sediment layers in experiments simulating compressional folding, which equates to soft-sediment deformation. None of the microscopic features expected from ductile deformation are present in any of the samples, those from the hinge and limb zones of the fold being essentially identical to those distal to the fold. There is no obvious evidence of any rotation of grains or grain boundary sliding, and there are no deformation lamellae or deformation kink bands in the quartz grains which rarely display even trivial undulose extinction, which would have been a product of their metamorphic source. The few occasional trivial fractures in most samples is consistent with sediment compaction under confining overburden pressures. Instead, the poorly sorted and scattered, angular to sub-rounded quartz and K-feldspar grains, and occasional muscovite flakes, plagioclase and glauconite grains, and brachiopod shell fragments are still in their detrital condition, "floating" in a matrix of micrite (mud-silt sized calcite particles) all lithified by calcite cement. There are no indications of the calcite cement having been disturbed since lithification of these limestone beds or of any metamorphic changes to the constituent minerals or the rock fabric. On the contrary, "injectites" in a hinge zone sample are consistent with being due to soft-sediment deformation before the limestone beds were cemented and lithified. Furthermore, SEM images clearly confirm that the calcite cement has not been disrupted since lithification in any of the samples. And even the scattered muscovite flakes are still in their detrital condition in all samples, with some having been bent or their "pages" split due to compactional loading, and no hint of any metamorphic changes due to deep burial. Thus, both the macroscopic and microscopic evidence are conclusively consistent only with soft-sediment deformation before cementation and lithification. Therefore, it is concluded that the Muav Formation had to be folded while still relatively damp, unlithified and soft soon after deposition and before cementation and lithification. Problems with radioisotope dating methods and U-Pb dates obtained for the underlying Tapeats Sandstone rule out the vast claimed ages. This can all be easily reconciled with rapid deposition of the Muav Formation early in the biblical global Flood cataclysm only ~4,350 years ago, and rapid deposition of up to ~3,300–4,500 m (~10,800–14,750 ft) of overlying sedimentary layers caused by inundation via catastrophic plate activity during the Flood year. Late or later in the Flood year, as the Farallon plate underplated the western North American plate, it caused isostatic reequilibration which likely resulted in the Late Cretaceous-Early Cenozoic Laramide uplift of the Colorado Plateau and the monocline folding in the Grand Canyon region. Because the Muav Formation beds were still relatively unlithified and soft less than a year after rapid burial, they easily responded via soft-sediment deformation to form the smooth bending in the Matkatamiba fold before the beds hardened and were cemented and lithified. Thus, nearly 500 million years of claimed geologic history can be eliminated as fictional.