Transformation and Remodelling of Canada's Landforms

Over the course of years our orbiting planet has gone through construction, reconstruction, and destruction. These actions have shaped many countries and our very own Canada’s land to the way it is today.

Through many years of developing, the earth’s crust is the way it is today due to the movement of tectonic plates. It is said that all land started out as a big continent Pangaea and later split into multiple landforms from tectonic plates movement. These are now the 7 continental landforms we see today. Landforms were created in these continents by tectonic movement. Tectonic movement created different landforms based on the direction it moved to. The action of tectonic plates colliding is described as convergent movement which forces sedimentary rock to go upward creating fold mountains. In addition the action of tectonic plates colliding can create ocean trenches. On the contrary when tectonic plates move away from each other which is also known as diverging this causes an ocean ridge landform to occur.

Accordingly the uplifting ocean floor’s convection currents rise in the mantle under the ocean’s crust and create magma forming the ridge. Convergent and divergent movement of plates can also create other landforms such as volcanoes and island arcs. These movement have created many landforms in Canada such as the mountain ridges in Vancouver, Niagara Falls, and Rocky Mountains through convergent movement. After Canada and many other continents’ were formed, the earth crust started to reshape and remodel.

This reconstruction process happened through years of glaciation rearranging the earth’s land. Glaciation remodels the land by placing ice sheets on land or by a moving glacier mountain striking the land. When the ice sheets embed into the earth, it freezes the land and water starts to seep into the ground.This breaks up rock and Earth as the ice begins to melt; changing the landscape. However glaciers on the other hand move towards the land colliding with the earth: breaking up land, chipping rocks, and moving landforms. Glaciation had a big impact on Canada because in the ice ages almost all of Canada was covered in thick ice. This shaped the ground and geological face of the country. In addition the fertile area of the Great Plains were remodelled by rock and soil sediments as the ice abstracted.

Moreover River valleys were carved into mountainous region and leftover glaciers and ice created our extensive lakes. This is mostly the reason why Canada is appraised for being one of the top 10 countries with best water supply. Moreover glaciation is the reason why Canada has a thick layer of ice up North and huge glaciers blocking the passage to land. These landforms act as a great defense for Canada as it is near impossible to intrude through the glaciers. Once the earth has reshaped, the last phase of ruination begins.

Every creation must come to an end; after years of building and remodelling the earth’s crust starts to wear down through erosion and weathering. This process of demolition is caused by weathering, wearing away at landforms thus enabling the erosion process. Weathering takes the form of wind, rain, moving water, and as previously stated moving ice. The erosion process starts as land is worn down via any form of weathering. The material are then transported through ice, water, wind or gravity.

When the material then builds up it starts to be deposited in a different area. This step in the process is called deposition where the sediment of land becomes too much to bear and gets dropped off at another point. The erosion process is somewhat similar to the pollination process. Where they both have material being picked up, transported, and deposited to another location. Canada’s landforms have been affected by this process with our agricultural soil changing, waterfalls, and our mountain ridges. It affects these because more and more rivers are breaking up rock landforms and are causing waterfalls. Furthermore the soil erodes through wind; which uplifts the the crops or plants and transports rock sediment to the soil. This damages lots of land and agriculture for Canada, but on the other hand starts a new sheet for phase one to begin again.

In conclusion the land is the way it is today by the three stages of building, remodelling, and dismantling. Without any of these phase the land would have no landforms of geographical structure and Canada would not be the great country we know it as. Tectonic forces, glaciation, and erosion all played a big role in Canada’s landforms.