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Geological Map of Canada (CD-ROM)
Map D1860A

About the Geology of Canada

The new Geological Map of Canada is the latest edition produced by the Geological Survey of Canada. The last edition was in 1969 (Douglas, 1969).

Map Design

The map displays bedrock formations at or near the surface of the land, on the sea floor above the continental crust that forms the Canadian landmass, and oceanic crust surrounding the landmass. The bedrock units are grouped and coloured according to geological age and composition. The colours of offshore units and oceanic crust are paler and more generalized than those on land, although the constituent units offshore are still easily discernible from their dashed boundaries. This colour design, coupled with the use of a white buffer zone at the coast allows the coastline of Canada to be readily distinguished and still show the grand geological architecture of the Canadian landmass.

The map also shows major faults that have disrupted the Earth's crust, onshore and offshore, and a variety of special geological features such as kimberlite pipes, which locally contain diamonds, impact structures suspected to have been caused by meteorites, and extinct and active spreading centres in the surrounding oceans.

Map Compilation

The map was compiled from published and unpublished maps and reports of the Geological Survey of Canada, Provincial Geological Surveys, the Yukon and Northwest Territories Geology Divisions of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Parts of U.S.A. were derived from maps of the United States Geological Survey. The resulting map is more intricate and complex than that published in 1969. This reflects completion of the helicopter- assisted reconnaissance mapping of Canada in 1978 and recent more detailed geological mapping by the Geological Survey of Canada and Provincial and Territorial surveys -- much of it under Mineral Development Agreements and through the GSC's National Geoscience Mapping Program (NATMAP). The compilation also used data from extensive gravity surveys by the former Earth Physics Branch, now part of the GSC, and from aeromagnetic surveys. The quality and accuracy of the map has been increased as a result of improved methods of dating geological units, notably from advances in micropaleontology (conodonts and radiolarian) and in radioactive dating methods employing the isotopes of uranium and lead. Altogether the new map has benefitted from a more accurate depiction and correlation of geological formations and better understanding of their natural relations. Similarly, extensive marine geoscience surveys since 1969 by the GSC now allow the geology on land to be extended across the Great Lakes and offshore, and to display the age, structure, and patterns of oceanic crust surrounding Canada.

The Geological Architecture of Canada

The geological assembly of Canada has resulted from the convergence, collision, and separation of distinctive continental and oceanic fragments at various times over the last four billion years. Canada's geological architecture is dominated by its central foundation - the Precambrian shield -- the largest area of Archean rocks (>2.5 billion years) in the world and containing its oldest rocks, dated at 4.0 billion years. The shield consists of several Archean fragments comprising granitic rocks and gneiss laced with sinuous greenstone volcanic belts and broader tracts of sedimentary rocks. Orogenic belts between the Archean fragments, such as those flanking the Superior Province or Slave Province, contain younger, Paleoproterozoic (2.5 to 1.6 billion years) rocks representing continental, oceanic, and collisional deposits and foreign or exotic fragments. Although most of the Precambrian shield was consolidated by the end of Paleoproterozoic time (known as Laurentia), its southeast portion (the Grenville Province) was stabilized about one billion years ago. The addition of Mesoproterozoic (1.6 to 1.0 billion years) and older gneisses and granitic rocks to Laurentia in the Grenville orogenic belt thus completed the assembly of the Precambrian shield.

Three younger deformed belts, mainly of Phanerozoic rocks (>545 million years), surround the shield. The Appalachian belt, in the southeast, contains large tracts of continental and oceanic fragments that were attached to ancestral North America in early- and mid-Paleozoic times, about 475 and 375 million years ago, respectively. Similarly, in the Cordillera of western Canada, large areas of continental and oceanic fragments were added to ancestral North America in the Mesozoic era at various times during the last 180 million years. By contrast, in the Innuitian belt in the Arctic Islands, only a small foreign fragment was attached in the mid-Paleozoic about 400 million years ago. After the belts were deformed they were superimposed by extensive less deformed basins dominated by sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian and Innuitian belts, but by volcanic rocks in the Cordillera.

Large parts of the Precambrian shield are covered by a thin veneer of undeformed sedimentary rocks which, except for Western Canada Basin east of the Cordillera, are mainly of early Paleozoic age. Locally, where the Paleozoic rocks are overlain by Cretaceous strata, they form basins, as in Hudson Bay, and fault-bounded troughs in and near Hudson Strait and north of Baffin Island, related to the rifting and opening of Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay. Crustal spreading and ocean opening, east of the passive eastern continental margin, ceased west of Greenland in the early Cenozoic, nearly 40 million years ago, but still continues in the mid-Atlantic Ocean.

A westward-thickening wedge of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments was deposited in Western Canada Basin. Its sediments were derived from elevated sources in the mountains of the deforming ancestral eastern Cordillera.

The Pacific margin of Canada, by contrast with the passive Atlantic margin, is active. The North American continent is overriding and sliding past the Pacific Ocean crust, thereby generating earthquakes (largely offshore) and volcanoes in the western Cordillera.

Uses of the Map

The Geological Map of Canada has many uses, from an educational tool for teaching the geology of Canada to a template from which other national thematic maps can be derived. Examples of such thematic maps include: a tectonic map depicting the geological building blocks and related structures (faults and folds) that resulted in the assembly of the Canadian landmass and a metallogenic map showing the distribution and nature of important mineral deposits and their genetic relationships to their host geological formations. The new Geological Map of Canada is also the framework against which other national maps and databases, such as the Gravity Map, Magnetic Anomaly Map, Seismicity (earthquake risk), and various kinds of regional geochemical maps may be compared and interpreted.

The digital version of the new Geological Map of Canada opens up new frontiers for learning about Canada and the great wealth and potential of its landmass and offshore regions. Not only will it provide the opportunity for geological patterns and related geological relationships to be studied at the scale of the Canadian landmass, but it will form the foundation for the digital national geoscience information base.

J.O. Wheeler
November, 1996


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