The Canadian Shield refers to the exposed portion of the continental crust underlying the majority of North America. The crust, also known as the North American Craton, extends from northern Mexico to Greenland and consists of hard rocks at least 1 billion years old.
What physical feature covers half of Canada?
Canada’s most outstanding physical feature is the Shield, a rugged area of pre-Cambrian rock that surrounds Hudson Bay and covers most of eastern and central Canada–almost half the country.
Which landform region covers more than half of Canada?
By far the largest of Canada’s physiographic regions, the Canadian Shield (sometimes called the Precambrian Shield) occupies about half of the total area of the country and is centred on Hudson Bay.
What is the bedrock of the Canadian Shield?
The Canadian Shield is the ancient core of the North American Continent. It is composed mainly of highly metamorphosed granite, with smaller areas of metamorphosed sedimentary and igneous rocks and some areas of relatively horizontal but still quite ancient sedimentary rocks.
What Canadian region covers half of Canada and comprised of ancient rock?
The Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier canadien (French), is a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks (geological shield) that forms the ancient geological core of the North American continent (the North American Craton or Laurentia).
What covers a very large part of Canada?
Canadian Shield, one of the world’s largest geologic continental shields, centred on Hudson Bay and extending for 8 million square km (3 million square miles) over eastern, central, and northwestern Canada from the Great Lakes to the Canadian Arctic and into Greenland, with small extensions into northern Minnesota,
What 2 physical features cover most of Canada?
Canada may be divided into several physiographic regions. A large interior basin centred on Hudson Bay and covering nearly four-fifths of the country is composed of the Canadian Shield, the interior plains, and the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence lowlands.
Which landform area in Canada contains 50% of Canada’s population?
The Great Lakes St Lawrence Lowlands are highly populated, with 50% of Canada’s entire population within it.
What are Canada’s 3 main landforms?
Cordillera. Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Lowlands. Appalachian Uplands.
What are Canada’s 3 main landforms regions?
List of landforms of Canada
- Appalachian Mountains.
- Pacific Cordillera.
- List of mountains in Canada.
What types of rock make up the platform on which most of the rest of Canada is built?
Most of the formation that we now see on the Canadian Shield is due to glaciers and not the tectonic movement. The Canadian Shield is primarily made up of igneous and metamorphic rock.
How old is the bedrock in the Canadian Shield?
The Canadian Shield contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth. In 2008, researchers estimated rock found on the northern shore of Hudson Bay, 40 km south of Inukjuak, to be 4.28 billion years old. Its age means the rock was created approximately 300million years after the formation of Earth.
What type of landforms can be found in the Canadian Shield?
Landforms in the Canadian Shield include both flat areas and rocky hills. There are forests, tundra, and lowlands. More than one quarter of the Canadian Shield’s surface is covered by water. The Canadian Shield has thousands of lakes, rivers, streams, and marshes.
What is the large ancient rock in Canada called?
The Acasta Gneiss is a tonalite gneiss in the Slave craton in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The rock body is exposed on an island about 300 kilometres north of Yellowknife. The rock of the outcrop was metamorphosed 3.58 to 4.031 billion years ago and is the oldest known intact crustal fragment on Earth.
What is known as the rock in Canada?
Newfoundland (along with Labrador) is the easternmost province in Canada, and affectionately known by many of its residents as “the rock” since it is an island situated well out in the North Atlantic.
What part of Canada is the rock from?
Newfoundland and Labrador
It’s nicknamed “The Rock,” but it’s actually pronounced “Newfundland” (let the record show that it came before Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). It’s part of a Canadian province called Newfoundland and Labrador (those crazy Canadians) and has its own time zone (90 minutes ahead of EST and 30 minutes ahead of Atlantic time).
What is Canada’s largest physical feature?
Canadian Shield
Canadian Shield. With an area close to 5 million km2, the Canadian Shield covers 48 per cent of Canada’s land surface (including freshwater lakes and Arctic islands). Even if the portion of the Shield found in the Arctic is excluded, the Canadian Shield remains the largest physiographic region in Canada.
Which climatic zone covers the largest part of Canada?
Boreal and Arctic Regions
The Boreal zone and the Arctic zone are the northernmost regions of Canada. The Boreal region is mostly composed of forests, comprising Canada’s largest climatic region.
Does the Canadian Shield cover a large part of Canada?
GENERAL INFORMATION The Canadian Shield is the largest of Canada’s 6 physical regions. This area completely surrounds the Hudson’s Bay in the shape of a horseshoe. It includes the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador (Labrador only).
What is the physical feature of central Canada?
Scooped out by the giant Hudson Bay to the north and bordered by four of the five Great Lakes — Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario — to the south, Central Canada (also known as the Laurentian region) is a mostly green landscape of rolling hills, grassy fields, and deciduous forests topped by a
What are the 7 major landforms in Canada?
Canada can be Divided into 7 distinct Landform Regions:
- Western Cordillera.
- Interior Plains.
- Canadian Shield.
- Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands.
- Appalachians.
- Arctic – Hudson Bay Lowlands.
- Innuitian Mountains.