The Canadian Shield refers to the exposed portion of the continental crust underlying the majority of North America. The Canadian Shield is rich in natural resources, including minerals, forests and freshwater. Each belt probably grew by the coalescence of accumulations erupted from numerous vents, making the tally of volcanoes in the hundreds. The shield is one of the world's richest areas in terms of mineral ores. The Canadian Shield is a collage of Archean plates and accreted juvenile arc terranes and sedimentary basins of the Proterozoic Eon that were progressively amalgamated during the interval 2.451.24 Ga, with the most substantial growth period occurring during the Trans-Hudson orogeny, between c. 1.901.80 Ga.[5] The Canadian Shield was the first part of North America to be permanently elevated above sea level and has remained almost wholly untouched by successive encroachments of the sea upon the continent. Today, the largest concentration of active mines on the Shield and in the world is located around Sudbury, Ontario. Most people there live on the temperate southwest coast . The multitude of rivers and lakes throughout the region is caused by the watersheds of the area being so young and in a state of sorting themselves out with the added effect of post-glacial rebound. Some of the highest producing hydroelectric dams include Churchill Falls, Labrador, and James Bay, Qubec. The forest industry harvests about 400,000 ha of timber each year across the Boreal ecozone . In the southern parts, the climate is seasonal; the average temperature in the winter is -. In the North the temperatures are very cold with an average winter temperature of -25 degrees Celsius and a summer temperature of 10 Degrees Celsius. This Natural Region experiences a harsh climate; winters are generally quite long that are influenced by polar and arctic weather systems with 40 percent of the annual . How My Regus Can Boost Your Business Productivity, How to Find the Best GE Appliances Dishwasher for Your Needs, How to Shop for Rooms to Go Bedroom Furniture, Tips to Maximize Your Corel Draw Productivity, How to Plan the Perfect Viator Tour for Every Occasion, Do Not Sell Or Share My Personal Information. The annual rainfall in Canada varies from 508mm (20) in the arid regions to 2032mm (80) in the mountains. This is the Athapaskan "land of little sticks" that stretches from Labrador to Alaska and from Siberia to Scandinavia. Spanning the width of North America, Canada is the worlds second largest country after Russia, and home to a diverse topography that ranges from deserts to tundra, plus coastlines that rim not only the Great Lakes but also three of the worlds five oceans. The Canadian Shield formed over 3 billion years through processes such as plate tectonics, erosion and glaciation. Winters can be harsh in many regions of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate. Of all the biomes with forests, the boreal forest is projected to experience the largest temperature shift. Learn why looking at a set of climate models, rather than a single one, can lend confidence to decisions. Corrections? In the southern parts, the climate is seasonal; the average temperature in the winter is -. They can occur at any time of the year and are most often caused by heavy rainfall, rapid melting of a thick snow pack, ice jams, or more rarely, the failure of a natural or man-made dam. In the northernmost part, a city such as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, will experience a dry, cold climate most of the year. The kimberlite eruptions then bring the diamonds up from over 93 miles below the surface. This arrangement was caused by severe glaciation during the ice age, which covered the Shield and scraped the rock clean. If you have any comment, feedback or need support, please contact us. 2016. The mean temperature of the warmest month, July, is generally between 15 and 20 C (59 and 68 F). Typical Canadian Shield: pines, lakes, bogs, and rock. Cool summer temperatures can actually produce higher photosynthetic efficiency in plants than can warmer conditions. Overcast. The Churchill and Grenville provinces contain deposits of uranium, lead and zinc. Coastal temperate climates are found near the ocean, and they tend to have mild winters, cool summers, and high precipitation. Not only does Canada have the longest coastline in the world, its also the only country to border three oceans: the Arctic, Atlantic, and the Pacific. Peterson Field Guide to Geology of Eastern North America by Roberts, David & Roger Tory Peterson. Given the prominence of the boreal forest throughout the Canadian Shield, forestry is also a prominent industry. Learn about the three main sources of uncertainty in climate projections. What Are The Features Of A Polar Climate? The current surface expression of the Shield is one of very thin soil lying on top of the bedrock, with many bare outcrops. Most of Antarctica is too cold and dry to support vegetation, and most of the continent is covered by ice fields. During the Archean, processes were also set in motion that prepared the foundation for multicellular life, with the development of an oxygen atmosphere and, it is speculated, possibly the appearance of the first eukaryotes around 2.7 billion years ago, near the end of the Archean (Mayr, 2001). Learn about Canadas weather station monitoring network and how long-term observations from these stations help build Canadas climate record. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Due to technological advancements, humans have been able to modify their environment and adapt to many different places. It is hot and rainy. The Canadian Shield is among the oldest on Earth, with regions dating from 2.5 to 4.2 billion years. Comparable to sandpaper on wood, these forces slowly wore down the mountains, so that by about 800 million years ago, the low-relief surface of the Shield had been created. This includes its high and low temperatures, precipitation, and barometric pressure from month to month and year to year. Each block is bounded by a belt of younger rock created when the blocks collided. The ice, in moving to the south, scraped the land bare of its overlying mantle of weathered rock. As the ice retreated from the southern part of present-day Canada a process that began as recently as 11,000 years ago it cut the basins of the Great Lakes as well as the thousands of lakes throughout the Canadian Shield. In the southern part, there are very cold snowy winters, while the summers are warm and long. The Boreal Shield ecozone is a main contributor to the Canadian economy not only with its economic activities but also with its pure fresh air, water, food, recreation, and wildlife. 4 degrees F (-18 degrees C), and in the summer it is 77 degrees F (25 degrees C). In the northernmost part, a city such as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, will experience a dry, cold climate most of the year. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. When the earth deforms as a result of these collisions, geologists call the deformation process an orogeny. Orogenies cause the earth to thrust upward, creating mountain ranges. The annual temperature range is 23C and Vancouver's annual precipitation is 1167mm. The growing season is only about 60 days and in the winter the sunlight hours are about 5.5 hours while in the summer 18.5 hours. The rocks that now form the surface of the Shield were once far below the Earth's surface. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. The boreal forest corresponds with regions of subarctic and cold continental climate. Of the three provinces that makeup the Canadian prairies, Manitoba is the most humid and thus typically receives more rainfall than Alberta and . These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. Adapting to a changing climate requires confronting and dealing effectively with a wide range of uncertainties. Because most of the tundra is underlain by permafrost, vegetation is not able to put down deep roots, stunting growth. Population. A warming climate and a map that stretches quite literally to the ends of the Earthplenty of land for planting, development and the likemake Canada's agriculture future look bright, but . This is a vast, deeply dissected mountain range, stretching from northernmost Ellesmere Island to the northernmost tip of Labrador. Wildlife Caribou 4. Image by Jon Sullivan. Although these mountains are now heavily eroded, many large mountains still exist in Canada's far north called the Arctic Cordillera. . Age. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. It has over 150 volcanic belts (now deformed and eroded down to nearly flat plains) that range from 600 to 1,200 million years old. Climate Graph & Average Temperature Quebec. The traditional calendar seasons, as defined by the . The Canadian Shield is so large that the climate varies across it. Canadas famous Rocky Mountain Range influences more than the Canadian climate. Comparable to the present-day Himalayas in size, the Grenville Mountains may have been the largest mountain range ever created on Earth. With the exception of the Canadian Shield, the rocks of the North American Craton are buried deep within the continent and covered by soil and other material. Hydroelectric developments such as those at Churchill Falls, Labrador, James Bay, Qubec, and Kettle Rapids, Manitoba, continue to feed electricity to urban centres in the south. Running nearly 1,000 miles down the Pacific coast from the Yukon to the Fraser valley, this jagged chain features steep slopes, glaciers, and jutting fjords as long as 120 miles. The first modern hard-rock mine in the Canadian Shield, near Madoc, Ontario, opened in 1866 after gold was found there. The Canadian Shield, a northern region constituting almost half of Canada, has a cold, dry climate characterized by Arctic winds, heavy snowfall during the winter, cool, short summers in the north and warm summers in the south. This climate is considered to be Dfb according to the Kppen-Geiger climate classification. The Flin Flon greenstone belt in central Manitoba and east-central Saskatchewan "is one of the largest Paleoproterozoic volcanic-hosted massive sulfide (VMS) districts in the world, containing 27 copper-zinc-(gold) deposits from which more than 183 million tonnes of sulfide have been mined."[22]. How many hours of Daylight does the Canadian Shield have? From the Arctic peoples word for barren land, Canadas tundra region is characterized by low growing shrubs and lichen, few trees, and permafrost soil. Leaves change color (or senesce) in autumn, fall off in the winter, and grow back in the spring; this adaptation allows plants to survive cold winters. 2 What are the main biomes of Florida? During the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the vast continental glaciers that covered northern North America had this region as a centre. If you were to overlay a map of the Canadian Shield with this week's population density map, you would see that Canada's major population centers do not extend into the Shield. These particles will have a pH level below 5.6. The growing season of about 120 days coincides with summer daylight averaging about 15 hours, while winter daylight averages about 8.5 hours. In the case of the Grenville Mountains, its estimated that tens of kilometres of rock may have been worn down. Hydrographical drainage is generally poor, the effects of glaciation being one of the reasons. The Shield can be divided into seven geologically distinct regions sometimes referred to as provinces. The Russian term "taiga" refers to the northern edge of the boreal coniferous forest. Long, severe winters last up to 6 months, with average temperatures below freezing. Explore various training modules and get up to speed on how to incorporate climate data into your decision making process. ISBN links support NWE through referral fees, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Canadian_Shield&oldid=678554, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. Canada is home to several mountain ranges, including the northern arm of the Appalachian Mountains. 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It covers much of Greenland, all of Labrador and the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, most of Quebec north of the St. Lawrence River, much of Ontario including northern sections of the Ontario Peninsula, the Adirondack Mountains[6] of New York, the northernmost part of Lower Michigan and all of Upper Michigan, northern Wisconsin, northeastern Minnesota, the central and northern portions of Manitoba away from Hudson Bay, northern Saskatchewan, a small portion of northeastern Alberta,[7] mainland Northwest Territories to the east of a line extended north from the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, most of Nunavut's mainland and, of its Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Island and significant bands through Somerset, Southampton, Devon and Ellesmere islands. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 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 ). So far, temperatures have shifted up to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and by the end of the century temperatures could increase by 11 degrees Celsiusa lot for an ecosystem that is generally below freezing. It covers 8,000,000 square kilometers. In addition to its rich natural resources, including substantial deposits of such mineral ores as nickel, gold, silver, and copper, and pristine northern ecosystems, the Canadian Shield also serves as a fertile area for human beings trying to better understand the origin of life. Canada has seven climatic regions or zones: the Arctic, Subarctic, Prairie, Great Lakes, Cordilleran, plus the East and West Coasts. The processes that formed the Canadian Shield have taken over three billion years to get where it is now. Globally, the presence of the Rockies pushes wind south. Thousands of fresh water bodies feed into the Bay, resulting in a lower salinity than the surrounding ocean. While Canada's fertility rate is 1.53 births per woman, below the population replacement rate, the population continues to grow as migration plays an increasing role in the population. The human population tends to be scarce in the taiga, but many mammals are present in the area, such as caribou, wolverines, weasels, minks, otters, grizzlies, and black bears. Human beings, which have a role as stewards of creation, have a deep curiosity to understand nature, and this is reflected in identifying the Canadian Shield and its ecological and scientific values. Shaped like a horseshoe or the shields carried during hand-to-hand combat the Canadian Shield extends from Labrador in the east to include nearly all of Qubec, much of Ontario and Manitoba, the northern portion of Saskatchewan, the northeast corner of Alberta, much of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and into the Arctic Archipelago. Climate in the tundra regions is too cold for trees to grow, summers are cool and short, and the region is dry. Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, has the lowest mean annual temperature of any major city in Canada: -5C. Climate Snowy Terrain 21. This arrangement was caused by severe glaciation during the last ice age, which covered the shield and scraped the rock clean. The area is dominated by coniferous forests, particularly spruce, interspersed with vast wetlands, mostly bogs and fens. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Low level haze. Typical Canadian Shield: pines, lakes, bogs, and rock. 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. The range's highest peak is Nunavut's Barbeau Peak at 2,616 metres (8,583ft) above sea level. Throughout the shield, there are many mining towns extracting these minerals. Why does the Canadian shield have thin soil? Join our newsletter for periodic updates. The Southern Province, for example, is home to the mining district of Sudbury, Ontario, known for its production of copper and nickel. The national capital Ottawa is located in Ontario bordering Quebec. The Canadian Shield: The Canadian Shield is a North American geological phenomenon of exposed bedrock made up of igneous and metamorphic rock. The lowlands of the Canadian Shield have a very dense soil that is not suitable for forestation; it also contains many marshes and bogs (muskegs). This region does overlap other regions of Canada, including the Cordillera and the Canadian Shield. The mountain region itself experiences year round snow in high elevations, significant rain on the western windward side and minimal precipitation on the leeward side resulting in a south-western desert landscape. Climate: Northwest Territories. Climate-Data.org. Here it is not the presence of geographical features, but the lack of them, that impacts the climate. Climate is not only wholly dependent on these regions, however. It is filled with substantial deposits of nickel, gold, silver, and copper. The high pressures and temperatures at those depths provided ideal conditions for mineralization. Source: Geological Survey of Canada, photograph number 2001-079. Large . [15], The Sturgeon Lake Caldera in Kenora District, Ontario, is one of the world's best preserved mineralized Neoarchean caldera complexes, which is 2.7 billion years old. Later, beginning in the mid-1800s, railway construction meant blasting through Canadian Shield rock, exposing valuable minerals in the process. Learn why ClimateData.ca uses an ensemble of 24 climate models to get a better grasp of what the future may look like. The Labrador Current brings cold water south of the Arctic. are timber-productive land. This vast region, with its store of forests, waterpower, and mineral resources, is being increasingly developed. The Canadian Shield is so large that the climate varies across it. Change in temperature is slower in deep water than it is on the land, resulting in warmer autumns and cooler springs than similar continental longitudes, plus lake-effect frost and snow in the winter. . Substantial gold discoveries were also made in Ontario at Kirkland Lake in 1906 and Timmins in 1912, and in Qubec at Rouyn-Noranda in 1920. Native Canadians, called First Nations people .
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