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.

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Why is the Canadian Shield so important to industry?

1) Furs – from fur bearing animals (hunting and trapping is still a large industry). 2) Minerals – this makes a lot of sense because the Shield is solid rock. Canadians extract copper, gold, nickel , zinc and lead from this area. Mining is the connected industry.

Why is the Canadian Shield good for tourism?

5) Tourism – of course the rugged beauty of the trees, lakes, rivers, rapids and valleys certainly leads to recreation and tourism. Many foreigners view Canada as a place to get back to nature – to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

What is the main industry of the Canadian Shield?

Economy: The main income and industry in the shield is mining, the reason being the terrain of half of the Canadian Shield being rocky and almost no plants growing. But in there area’s with the Boral forest the logging industry is a lot more prominence.

What is the most significant thing 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 almost completely uninhabited?

This region has dry, barren, and mostly uninhabited areas. This is largely because it has long, cold winters with heavy snow and perpetually frozen soil.

Why is the Canadian Shield a good place to live?

Some of these reasons include the weather. The weather in the Canadian Shield is cold in the winter and people like to ski, go snowmobiling and play ice hockey. The animals are another reason why people want to live in the Canadian Shield. They might want to fish or they might want to hunt for bears.

What makes up 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.

Is the Canadian Shield good for farming?

Article byThe Canadian EncyclopediaUpdated byFred Glover

What are some fun facts about the Canadian Shield?

It is mainly composed of granite and has a thin layer of soil. A total of four different mountain ranges rise from the Canadian Shield. The Precambrian rocks of this shield are estimated to be around 570 million years old. The Canadian Shield is also known as the Precambrian Shield and the Laurentian Plateau.

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What are the main attractions in the Canadian Shield?

  1. Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls. …
  2. Toronto’s CN Tower. Toronto’s CN Tower. …
  3. Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Parliament Hill in Ottawa. …
  4. Ontario’s Provincial and National Parks. …
  5. Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) …
  6. Canada’s Wonderland. …
  7. National Gallery of Canada. …
  8. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

What natural resources are found in the Canadian Shield?

The Canadian Shield is one of the world’s richest areas in terms of mineral ores, such as nickel, gold, silver, and copper. It also hosts prehistoric alkaline intrusions that are lower-middle Cambrian in age that produced rare minerals like sodalite and cancrinite.

How did the Canadian Shield differ in appearance from today?

How did the Canadian Shield differ during the Precambrian era in appearance from today? It used to be mountains, now it’s levelled by erosion, leaving rock covered by soil and many lakes.

Why is the Canadian Shield called the 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 the Canadian Shield climate?

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 affects the quality of life in the Canadian Shield?

Here is how the land, water, and climate affect quality of life for some people in the Canadian Shield. Recreation is one aspect of quality of life.

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.

How does climate change affect 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. … The Canadian Shield’s vast rock masses that have a height span of up to 10,000 feet causing elevation & relief.

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.

Why does nobody live in northern Canada?

Basically because most of Canada is very far north (it claims all the land to the North Pole), and only the southern regions are inhabitable. More practically, the people live where the agricultural land is. There is very little agricultural land in the North of Canada.

Where does 90% of Canada's population live?

Canadian Provinces and Territories However, despite this vast territory for a relatively small population, more than 90 percent of Canadians live within 150 miles of the US border.

Does the Canadian Shield have good soil?

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). The rest of the region has coarse soil that does not retain moisture well and is frozen with permafrost throughout the year. Forests are not as dense in the north.

Why is there little farming in the Canadian Shield?

Soil quality, climate and economic competition are three reasons there is so little farming in the Canadian Shield.

What crops grow in the Canadian Shield?

Major field crops grown in Canada include wheat, canola, barley, corn and soybeans. Other crops include rye, oats, white beans and mixed grains. Several specialty crops, which are limited to a very small area of land, are also grown in certain regions.

How stable is the Canadian Shield?

It contains some of the oldest rocks on the Earth, its interior has been stable for the longest period of time, and it was the first continent to achieve approximately its present size and shape. Although its known geologic history spans almost 4 billion years, two ages stand out as turning points.

What is Canadian Shield explained to kids?

This Precambrian igneous rock is in a vast mass called the Canadian Shield. It was dry land ages ago when the oceans still rolled over the sites of the Appalachian and the Rocky mountains. It was uplifted to form a plateau and then carved by stream erosion. Finally glaciers scraped it almost level.

Where is the Canadian Shield for kids?

The Canadian Shield is a broad region of Precambrian rock (pictured in shades of red) that encircles Hudson Bay. It spans eastern, northeastern, and east-central Canada and the upper midwestern United States.

Do people visit the Canadian Shield?

Canadian Shield Tours & Trips Find your next adventure through the Canadian Shield. Go wildlife spotting in the Canadian Arctic and visit major cities including Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec. Next, on your list should be visiting some of the most beautiful lakes and embark on a canoe or hiking adventure.

Is Niagara Falls in the Canadian Shield?

The Niagara Region is located on a portion of a great plain which runs east to west from the northern Laurentian Highlands (Canadian Shield) approximately 161 kilometres north of Toronto, Ontario to the southern Allegheny Plateau which form the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains.

How does Canada benefit from natural resources?

Over the last decade, natural resource wealth accounted for between 12% and 19% of Canada’s total wealth (Chart 1). Natural resources not only generate wealth but also contribute raw materials to create other types of wealth such as buildings, bridges, machinery and equipment.

What is Canada's greatest natural resource?

Canadians are very engaged on the issue of fresh water. Not only do they regard it as by far our most important natural resource, a somewhat surprising finding when the importance of oil and gas to our economy is considered.