Land Features | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Article

    Lake Agassiz

    Lake Agassiz was the largest glacial lake in North America. It was formed 11 500 years ago in front of the northeastwardly retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet, which acted as a dam.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Lake Agassiz
  • Article

    Land

    Earth's surface experiences change driven by relief, sea level, hydroclimate and human activity. Extreme hydroclimatic events combined with human activity on steep slopes and/or adjacent to low-lying coasts generate natural hazards.

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  • Article

    Landslide

    A landslide is a downward and outward movement of a soil mass that formed part of a slope.

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  • Article

    Metamorphic Rock

    Metamorphic rock is one of the 3 major classes of rock comprising the Earth's crust, the others being SEDIMENTARY and IGNEOUS ROCKS. Metamorphic rock has been transformed, while in the solid state, by pressure, temperature and deformation.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/e0a546d9-bcaf-41e5-a7d4-076b178b5592.jpg Metamorphic Rock
  • Article

    National Parks of Canada

    Canada’s national parks are protected areas established under federal legislation to preserve Canada’s natural heritage. They are administered by Parks Canada, a government agency that evolved from the world’s first national parks service, the Dominion Parks Branch, established in 1911. The National Parks System Plan, developed in 1970, divided Canada into 39 natural regions and set the goal of representing each region with at least one national park. Canada now has 48 national parks and national park reserves in 30 of these regions. In total, the parks cover more than 340,000 km2, which is over 3 per cent of Canada’s landmass. They protect important land and marine habitats, geographical features and sites of cultural significance. National parks also benefit local economies and the tourism industry in Canada. (This is the full-length entry about National Parks of Canada. For a plain-language summary, please see National Parks of Canada (Plain-Language Summary).)

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  • Article

    Natural Regions

    Natural regions are intended to describe areas of the Earth's surface which possess similar qualities or attributes. They may refer to either land or water, and can vary in size. The term “natural region” is often used interchangeably with the word “ecozone.”

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  • Article

    Old Crow Plain

    The vegetation is of the tundra type, with outliers of the boreal spruce forest; willow thickets line the course of the Old Crow River.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/3372115f-2e5f-492c-a1d9-de73d4668939.jpg Old Crow Plain
  • Article

    Peat

    Peat, living and partially decomposed organic matter, consists principally of decayed brown mosses, Sphagnum plants, sedges and other semiaquatic plant remains.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Peat
  • Article

    Periglacial Landform

    A periglacial landform is a feature resulting from the action of intense frost, often combined with the presence of permafrost. Periglacial landforms are restricted to areas that experience cold but essentially nonglacial climates.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/abcd7af0-a9a4-4141-9543-193539282103.jpg Periglacial Landform
  • Article

    Permafrost

    Permafrost is ground remaining at or below 0°C continuously for at least two years. About 50 per cent of Canada is underlain by permafrost, mainly in the Arctic Archipelago, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

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  • Article

    Pingo

     A pingo is an ice-cored hill typically conical in shape, growing and persisting only in PERMAFROST. The word "pingo" is of Inuit origin and was first used in the English-language literature by the botanist Alf E.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/5e658751-a56e-4535-9950-f641ec565a97.jpg Pingo
  • Article

    Plate Tectonics (Plain-Language Summary)

    Plate tectonics is the theory that rocky plates divide Earth’s surface. The plates move as Earth releases heat from its interior. The movement of plates creates volcanoes and mountains and causes earthquakes. This article is a plain-language summary of Plate Tectonics. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Plate Tectonics.

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  • Article

    Québec's Postglacial Seas

    Between about 100 000 and 12 000 years ago, the whole area of Québec as well as a major part of the northern hemisphere was covered with a thick layer of ice. In the late PLEISTOCENE era, just over 12 000 years ago, Québec underwent a gradual warming of the atmosphere.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/e3cfe0fb-4ec8-418c-b14c-582f156d72a1.jpg Québec's Postglacial Seas
  • Article

    Quill Lakes

    The Quill Lakes are three connected saline lakes in southeastern Saskatchewan. They are located 150 km north of Regina and 152 km east of Saskatoon. From west to east the lakes are named Big Quill, Middle Quill (also known as Mud Lake) and Little Quill. Despite its name, at 181 km2 Little Quill is the second largest of the three lakes. Big Quill is the largest at 307 km2. The Quill Lakes’ elevation is 516 m.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Quill Lakes
  • Article

    Rocky Mountain Trench

    The Rocky Mountain Trench is a long and deep valley extending approximately 1,500 km from the Bitterroot Valley in northwest Montana through British Columbia to the Liard Plain just south of the Yukon Territory. Its predominantly flat floor is 3–20 km wide and ranges in elevation between 600 m and 1,000 m above sea level. With walls made of sedimentary, volcanic and igneous rock, the Trench is sometimes referred to as the “Valley of a Thousand Peaks” because of the towering mountain ranges on either side: the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Columbia, Omineca and Cassiar mountains to the west. Humans have relied on the rich resources provided by this distinctive landscape from pre-colonial times to the present.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/061fe992-a3bf-45bc-906d-216d1bef45c7.jpg Rocky Mountain Trench