physical geography (lec 1) Flashcards
Ontario (meaning)
Iroquois word for Lake Ontario meaning ‘sparkling water’ or ‘rocks by the water’
Toronto (meaning)
native word tarantou = ‘place of meaning’
Ontario Stats
2nd largest province next to Quebec, 412,582 square miles or 1,068,582 square km
Water
Thames river flows south
Water is very important to development of Ontario
Ontario’s 2 regions
Canadian Shield (laurentian plateau) & Interior Plains and Lowlands
Where is the Canadian Shield?
Relatively high rocky region in the middle of Ontario, in the northwestern and central portions which covers over half the land area in the province
How is the Canadian Shield soil?
mostly infertile - rich in minerals and studded with lakes and rivers
Interior Plains and Lowlands: where?
Plains in the northern part by hudson bay and the lowlands in the south
Where are the Hudson Bay Plains? Hows the land?
Interior plains, in the extreme north and northeast, mainly swampy and sparsely forested
Where are the Lowlands?
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Valley in the south where agriculture and industry are concentrated
What gave us the higher rocky shield?
Years of glaciation: the ice created the shape of the rocks being flattened
Drainage Basins?
There are many for fresh water in Ontario - not all of it goes to the great lakes, a good portion goes into Hudson Bay
Describe the Canadian Shield
In the middle/high area of Ontario, symbolizes cliche ontario, lots of resources, extends well beyond Ontario, lots of lakes and forests, Niagara Escarpment*
How can Canada be summed up?
Rocks, Lakes, Forests
Rock
mostly igneous and metamorphic, between 1.5 and 3.5 billion years old, high mountains eroded down into rocky ridges, very hard rock which takes a long time to break down
Lakes
thousands, result of glaciation over millions of years: massive ice sheets scoured and gouged the earth therefore changed the drainage patterns, glaciers scraped the soil from the rocks
Forest
since last ice age (15,000 yrs ago) in Southern ON, gotten some trees - 6000 years ago in Northern Quebec: the land has become covered with a thick boreal forest of coniferous trees covered the North
What kinds of trees?
Jack pine, balsam fir, white and black spruce
Where are trees?
Continue north to treelike where trees dwindle and tundra begins and its too cold for trees to thrive
How is the soil for trees?
we have thin acidic soil supported the boreal trees = which are very good for lumber
How much of ON is covered in forest?
80%
What about replanting?
in the last 20 years there has been lots done to replant
What are the biggest threats to forests?
Environmental such as invasive species and fires
From North to South = what are the tree types?
Deciduous –> mixed -> boreal -> boreal barrens -> tundra
why are we losing tundra?
warmer climate
people in the Canadian Shield?
Few people there! with the exception of forestry/mining/native canadian villages,
Hudson Bay Plains (describe)
Third largest wetland in the world! vast sodden plain, slopes towards sea gradient of <1m/km, nothing there - no trees/very flat
what are HBP composed of?
mostly muskeg and peatlands (peat moss) not very good soil usage for agriculture
What underlies the HBP?
permafrost (in most of the region)
Where are the HBP
furthest north and not easy to get around
How big the HBP?
The drainage basin of the Hudson Bay lowlands is bigger than the lowlands itself
Permafrost?
There is a permafrost line but it is very small at the top of Northern Ontario
Great Lakes/St Lawrence lowlands soil?
rich soil good for agriculture
Whats the difference between the 2?
2 separate lowlands divided by a portion of the Canadian shield called the Frotenac Axis (kingston to st lawrence river)
Why isn’t the GL/SL deciduous forests?
Would be - but got cut up for the development of farm land so the forests are no longer continuous!
St.Lawrence Lowland
Rift Valley (faults/cracks in earths crust made millions of years ago) split the valley which WAS part of the Cdn shield, creating the lowland!
Why is there such a flat landscape?
After the last ice age - high ocean levels allowed the Atlanic Ocean to creep inwards as far as Ottawa
What is a moraine?
Where a glacier moves the land into hills
Great Lakes Lowlands
our end of the province!
Dominant feature of the GLL?
Niagara escarpment - rock that didn’t get eroded in the glaciation - it’s what remained.
Where does the Niagara Escarpment run?
Westward from New York State, through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, and illinois; over 1000km long stretching from NY state to Tobermory, then into Michigan via Manitoulin island
Climate in SLL?
area is protected: can’t be build on, very hard rock, due to escarpment blocking some of the weather has its own sort of sub climate
Niagara Falls point of no return?
LESS than one mile in
Why are the falls moving?
Mocing back because over time the water falls and erodes the wall underneath = makes a gap, eventual the chunks fall off and it moves back = it has eroded KMs! eventually looking like a series of rapids
What does the falls do?
Supplies us with hydro electricity, takes more water at night for hydro*
SLL landscape?
some glacial landforms remain - predominantly flat
SLL agriculture?
land class 1 = makes the most money agriculturally! Niagara fruit belt*, the farmland is best to convert to urban use: if climate was year round wed be able to grow anything!
Who lives in the SLL?
Majority of Ontarians
Climate in SLL?
very difficult to characterize/getting harder to predict, mostly ‘humid continental - warm humid summers with cold winters’
SLL annual precipitation?
75-100cm (30-39inches), some - more “maritime”
Major Air sources in SLL?
Cold, dry, polar air from the north = harsh winters
Pacific polar air passes over the prairies = warm air that picks up lots of moisture causing big snowfalls
Warm moist subtropical air from the Atlantic ocean and the gulf of Mexico = cause big heat waves and gives us snow/rain/storms
Air from Atlantic Ocean = hurricane/unusual
Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean = heat waves
Precipitation trend?
General trend increases from northwest to southeast: snow accumulation varies greatly across the province (north seems like they get more but it just doesn’t melt) closer to the water = more precipitation
What lake could freeze over?
Lake erie would be the only possible one because its so shallow!
Where are the most lightning strike per year?
London! averaging 34 days of thunderstorm activity per year
Ontario averages how many tornado touchdowns a year?
15 ! rarely destructive
Great Lakes
hold 1/5 of all the surface fresh water in the world! Combined shorelines of the GLs = 45% of earths circumference
Species in the GLs
more species than anywhere else: more than 150 fish types
5 great lakes are….
the biggest continuous body of fresh water
GL basin
covers an area of 750,000 square kilometres,
How many Ontarians live in the great lakes basin region?
more than 98%!
Who gets their drinking water from the Great Lakes?
70% of residents
How many trees does Ontario have?
80 billion
4 Forest Regions in Ontario
Hudson Bay Lowlands (subarctic barrens) 19% of Ontario’s Forests
- Boreal Forest (largest forest region in Ontario and Canada) 58%
- Great Lakes-St Lawrence 19%
- Deciduous Forest (southern Ontario) 3%
Ontario: species?
- 80 different mammmals
- 400 kinds of birds
- 80 reptiles and amphibians
- 20,000 types of indects
- 3300 species of plants
- more than 1000 fungi/algae
