Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield
Stratigraphic range: Precambrian Pha. Proterozoic Archean Had.
Type	Shield
Unit of	North American craton
Sub-units	Laurentian Upland Kazan[1]
Area	8,000,000 km2[2]
Location
Coordinates	52°00′N 71°00′W / 52.000°N 71.000°W / 52.000; -71.000
Region	North America
Country	Canada United States Greenland
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.

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.^[3] As a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada, the shield stretches north from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half of Canada and most of Greenland; it also extends south into the northern reaches of the continental United States.