What is Canadian Shield?

What is 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.

What is a fact about 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.

What is the physical description of the Canadian Shield?

The physical features of the Canadian Shield includes rocks , bares and plateaus . The Canadian Shield has uplands which are high or hilly areas, and there are also a lot of rivers , lakes , streams and wetlands. Wetlands help clean water by trapping harmful chemicals.

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 Canadian Shield for kids?

The Canadian Shield is the largest region in Canada, covering almost half of the country and it is also one of the largest geologic continental shields in the world. This plateau covers most of Greenland and a portion of the northern United States as well.

What is Canadian Shield made of?

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 is the Canadian Shield made up of?

As the exposed part of the North American puzzle piece, the Canadian shield is made of hard rock, both igneous (formed by the rapid cooling of liquid rock) and metamorphic (rock that has been changed by enormous heat and pressure). It is covered with relatively thin layers of soil, gravel, etc.

What is Shield in geography?

A shield is a large area of exposed Precambrian crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically stable areas. These rocks are older than 570 million years and sometimes date back to around 2 to 3.5 billion years.

When was the Canadian Shield formed?

The first was about 1.8 billion years ago, when several continental fragments coalesced to form the stable crust underlying the Canadian Shield and northern interior platform.

Why is the Canadian Shield so important?

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. The largest, and one of the best known, is Sudbury, Ontario.