What are some fun facts about the Canadian Shield?

This article is a plain language summary of the Canadian Shield. If you would like to learn more, please see our full article.

The Canadian Shield is a gigantic rock formation. Canadian Shield is one of the oldest on Earth, with areas dating from 2.5 to 4.2 billion years. It is part of the rock or crust also known as the North American craton. The craton extends from Greenland to Mexico. The Canadian Shield covers about 50% of Canada. It extends from Labrador to the Arctic. It covers parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta. It also covers large parts of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. It has an area of 5 million km2. The Canadian Shield contains many natural resources, including many minerals. Few people live directly on the Canadian Shield – the soil is too rocky for farming.

What are some fun facts about the Canadian Shield?

• The Canadian Shield contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth. In 2008, researchers estimated the age of a rock collected from the northern shore of Hudson Bay, 40 km south of Inukjuak, to be 4.28 billion years old. This rock was created approximately 300 million years after the Earth was formed. The oldest known rocks on Earth were those found southeast of Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. These rocks are estimated to be about 4 billion years old.
• The Sudbury site in Ontario was struck by a meteorite about 1.85 billion years ago and the impact left a crater, the “Sudbury Structure”. This basin, 60 km long and 30 km wide, contains the rich metal deposits of the region. The presence of metals such as copper and nickel is the result of the melting of the earth’s crust by the impact of the meteorite.

Formation of the Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield took three billion years to form. Its formation is due to several forces. It is the result of continuous collisions between different parts of the Earth. These movements are referred to as plate tectonics, and at the same time, the earth’s surface was eroded. Then, huge glaciers transformed it during different ice ages. At one point, the Canadian Shield was a gigantic mountain range. Geologists, the people who study the earth’s surface, called it the Grenville Mountain Range. These mountains were as big as the Himalayas of today. The mountains of the Canadian Shield were later eroded. Erosion occurs when wind and rain wear away at the rocks, land and land surface. Environmental forces continue to transform the Canadian Shield every day.

Physical Features and Resources

Erosion and glaciers have flattened much of the Canadian Shield. However, it is not the same everywhere. Geologists have divided it into seven different regions or provinces. These are the Nain, Grenville, Southern, Lake Superior, Churchill, Slave and Bear provinces. Nickel and copper are found in the Southern Province, mostly in the Sudbury, Ontario area. The Superior Province (mostly in Quebec and northern Ontario) has copper, gold, iron and silver. The Bear Province, located in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, has copper and uranium. The other provinces, with the exception of the Nain province, also have many minerals.

Most of the Canadian Shield is covered by forests. These forests contain many types of trees, including white and black spruce; red, white and Weymouth pine; mountain maple; and black ash. There are few trees in the northern part of the Canadian Shield; it is very difficult, if not impossible, for trees to grow in very cold climates. The northern part of the Canadian Shield is called the Arctic Tundra Ecozone. Permafrost covers it. This means that the ground is always frozen.

Wildlife

Many types of animals live on the Canadian Shield. These include wolves, lynx, moose, black bear, beaver and caribou. Birds include Canada geese, black ducks, blue jays, great horned owls and white-throated sparrows. Fish in Canadian Shield lakes and rivers include trout, burbot and northern pike.

Human populations of the Canadian Shield

Aboriginal peoples have lived on the Canadian Shield for thousands of years. The Innu traditional territory includes present-day Quebec and Labrador. The traditional territory of the Cree, Anichinaabe and Métis includes parts of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The traditional territory of the Dene and Inuit includes the northernmost parts of the Canadian Shield. Most European settlers did not attempt to live on the Canadian Shield because of its infertile soils. As a result, the Euro-Canadian population living on the Canadian Shield remained small. Canadian industries, however, still have a strong interest in the region. It is rich in minerals.

What is important about the Canadian Shield?

The Canadian Shield constitutes the largest mass of exposed Precambrian rock on the face of Earth. The region, as a whole, is composed of ancient crystalline rocks whose complex structure attests to a long history of uplift and depression, mountain building (orogeny), and erosion.

Why is the Canadian Shield important to industry?

Economically, it is one of the richest regions in the world in terms of ores and minerals: nickel, gold, silver and copper. There are also large boreal forests that have allowed the development of the wood industry.

The Canadian Shield is one of the world’s richest areas in terms of mineral ores. It is filled with substantial deposits of nickel, gold, silver, and copper. Throughout the Shield there are many mining towns extracting these minerals.

What are 3 fun facts about the Canadian Shield?

Canada’s Shield is one of the oldest on Earth, with areas dating from 2.5 to 4.2 billion years. It is full of rivers, lakes, and a dike swarm that is the largest dike swarm known to Earth. The Canadian Shield is made up of deep-rooted mountains and spruce, lakes, bogs, and rock.

How do humans use the Canadian Shield?

The five major human activities in the Canadian Shield are fishing, boating, hunting, cross-country skiing, and dog-sled riding. This physiographic region has a lot of fishing and boating due tp the fact that the Shield has many rivers and lakes.

Is the Canadian Shield habitable?

But did you know that most of it is uninhabited? This is due to its geography and climate that gets inhospitable to humans as you go further up north. A bulk of the population lives in large cities near the US border, Canada’s only neighbouring nation.

Is the Canadian Shield good for farming?

The shield contains many natural resources, including many minerals. Not many people live directly on the Canadian Shield. It is too rocky and the land is not good for farming.

Is the Canadian Shield good for fishing?

Fishing Canadian Shield Lakes. Imagine pristine, wilderness surrounded, deep, rocky lakes teeming with species like northern pike, walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass, and you’re seeing a Canadian Shield lake.

What are the three main economic activities of the Canadian Shield?

Due to the Canadian Shield’s extensive natural resources, the region produces significant economic activity through its lumber industry and widespread mining operations.

• Geology. …
• Metals and Minerals. …
• Diamonds. …
• Timber.

Is the Canadian Shield flat?

The Canadian shield has vast exposed areas of ancient rock. With much volcanic activity this area used to be mountainous, but over time glaciers, water, and wind wore much of the mountains away. Instead the region is made up of high, flat land called plateaus which are surrounded by mountains or cliffs.

Is the Canadian Shield cold or hot?

It is marked by cool summers (except the Lac Seul Upland area which has warm summers) and very cold winters. The mean annual temperature ranges from -4°C to 0.5°C; the mean summer temperature ranges from 11.5°C to 14°C; and the mean winter temperature ranges from -20.5°C to -14.5°C.

What is Canada known for?

What is Canada famous for?

• Scenery. Let’s face it, Canada is beautiful; and famously so. …
• Ice Hockey. Canada’s national winter sport and most Canadians feel the same way about hockey as the British do about football; it’s almost a matter of life or death. …
• Maple Syrup. …
• Extreme politeness. …
• Moose.

Why is it called Canadian Shield?

The Canadian shield gets its name from its shape, which resembles an ancient shield, raised and ready to defend North America. The Canadian shield’s bare surface makes it much more useful for mining, logging, hydroelectric power generation, and similar operations that do not require deep earth.

What is unique about the Canadian Shield?

The Canadian Shield’s most notable physical features are thousands of small lakes, thin layers of soil and rolling hills. Lakes are largely the result of glacial erosion during the last ice age.

What is the future of the Canadian Shield?

The future of the Canadian Shields’ climate will probably be an increased rate of weathering and erosion as well as glaciation due to the changes in precipitation caused by climate change. We learn about L.O.W.E.R.N in CGC, the Canadian Shield is affected by three out of six of these conditions.

What is the climate of the Canadian Shield?

The Canadian Shield is so large that the climate varies across it. Typical Canadian Shield: pines, lakes, bogs, and rock. In the southern parts, the climate is seasonal; the average temperature in the winter is -. 4 degrees F (-18 degrees C), and in the summer it is 77 degrees F (25 degrees C).

What wildlife is found in the Canadian Shield?

Characteristic wildlife include moose (Alces alces), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), black bear (Ursus americanus), lynx (Lynx canadensis), snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), wolf (Canis lupus), sharp-tailed grouse (Tympahuchus phasianellus), ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), American black duck (Anas rubripes) and wood …

What natural disasters occur in the Canadian Shield?

What natural disasters occur in the Canadian Shield?

• Avalanches. Thousands of avalanches occur in Canada each year. …
• Earthquakes. Approximately 5,000 mostly small earthquakes are recorded in Canada each year.
• Floods. …
• Hurricanes. …
• Landslides. …
• Severe storms. …
• Storm surges. …
• Tornadoes.

How does Canada help with natural disasters?

In the event of a large-scale natural disaster, the Government of Canada provides financial assistance to provincial and territorial governments through the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (DFAA), administered by Public Safety Canada (PS).

Why are there no tornadoes in Canada?

For a variety of reasons, such as Canada’s lower population density and generally stronger housing construction due to the colder climate, Canadian tornadoes have historically caused fewer fatalities than tornadoes in the United States.

What was the worst disaster in Canada?

The Deadliest Disasters In Canada

Can a tsunami hit Canada?

Although tsunami occurrences in Canada are rare, they do occur and can cause major damage and loss of life. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been one tsunami reported about every fifteen to twenty years in Canada.

Why do people move to Canada?

Owing to the solid economy and the number of huge corporations that Canada has; the job market benefits greatly from that; the jobs keep pouring from that and this is one of the reasons why immigrants are increasingly moving to Canada because the job market is welcoming the immigrants with open arms.

What are the facts about the Canadian Shield?

The Canadian Shield is a plateau that covers about half of Canada, as well as most of Greenland and part of the northern United States. It is the oldest part of the North American Plate and the largest exposed Precambrian rock formation in the world.

Other names for the Canadian Shield include the Precambrian Shield and the Laurentian Plateau. It is composed primarily of granite and covers 1.7 million square miles. In addition to granite, it contains deposits of iron, gold, silver, uranium, platinum, nickel and copper. Diamonds are also found in the Canadian Shield and are mined in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Some of the world’s oldest known fossils are found in the Canadian Shield; fossil bacteria and algae in the region date back about 2.2 billion years.

Four mountain ranges rise from the Canadian Shield: the Adirondack Mountains and Superior Highlands in the United States and the Laurentian and Torngat Mountains in Canada. The current topography of the Canadian Shield is a result of glacial movement during the most recent ice age and ranges from 1,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. The highest points of the Canadian Shield are found on Baffin Island and northern Labrador.