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Canadian Shield
Sign in to saveAlso known as Laurentian Plateau
geographic and geologic area of Canada
Key facts
- Type
- Shield
- Unit of
- North American craton
- Sub units
- Laurentian Upland , Kazan
- Area
- 8,000,000 km
- Region
- North America
- Country
- Canada, United States, Greenland
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- shield
- Part of
- Laurentia
- Named after
- Canada
- Country
- United States
- Elevation
- 2616
- Highest point
- Barbeau Peak
- Image
- Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie.jpg
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- Canadian Shield
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Canadian Shield (French: Bouclier canadien [buklje kanadjɛ̃]), also called the Laurentian Shield or the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible. As a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada,; it also is south into the northern reaches of the continental United States.
Geographical extent
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Canadian Shield” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.