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The Fraser Plateau is an intermontane plateau. It is one of the main subdivisions of the
Interior Plateau The Interior Plateau comprises a large region of the Interior of British Columbia, and lies between the Cariboo and Monashee Mountains on the east, and the Hazelton Mountains, Coast Mountains and Cascade Range on the west.''Landforms of British ...
located in the Central Interior of British Columbia.


Geography

The region includes the
Cariboo Plateau The Cariboo Plateau is a volcanic plateau in south-central British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Fraser Plateau that itself is a northward extension of the North American Plateau. The southern limit of the plateau is the Bonaparte River al ...
and
Chilcotin Plateau The Chilcotin Plateau is part of the Fraser Plateau, a major subdivision of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. The Chilcotin Plateau is physically near-identical with the region of the same name, i.e. "the Chilcotin", which lies between ...
, and the adjoining
Marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
, Clear and Camelsfoot Ranges on its southwestern edge. It is defined as lying between the
Bonaparte River The Bonaparte River is a tributary of the Thompson River, joining it at the community of Ashcroft, British Columbia. The river is about long, including the length of Bonaparte Lake. Rising on the Silwhoiakun Plateau to the northwest of Kamloops, ...
on its southeast, beyond which is the Bonaparte or Kamloops Plateau, part of the
Thompson Plateau The Thompson Plateau forms the southern portion of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, Canada, lying to the west of Okanagan Lake, south of the Thompson River and east of (although never adjoining it) the Fraser River. At its most southern p ...
, and by a line formed by the Dean and
West Road River The West Road River or Blackwater River or Tiyakoh is an important tributary of the Fraser River, flowing generally north-eastward from the northern slopes of the Ilgachuz Range and across the Fraser Plateau in the Chilcotin region of central Br ...
s on its northwest (the
Nechako Plateau The Nechako Plateau is the northernmost subdivision of the Interior Plateau, one of the main geographic regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It spans the basin of the Nechako River and its tributaries the Stuart River and Endak ...
lies to the north of the West Road). Also included in the Fraser Plateau are the Itcha and Ilgachuz Ranges and the adjoining Rainbow Range, which adjoin the
Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia ...
.


Geology

The Fraser Plateau consists of
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low- viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron ( mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More tha ...
ic lava of the
Chilcotin Group The Chilcotin Group, also called the Chilcotin Plateau Basalts, is a large area of basaltic lava that forms a volcanic plateau running parallel with the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt in south-central British Columbia, Canada. Predominantly, during Mio ...
, a group of related volcanic rocks that is nearly parallel with the Fraser Plateau.Chasm and Dog Creek lithofacies, Chilcotin Group basalt, Bonaparte Lake map area, British Columbia
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See also

* Fraser Plateau and Basin complex (WWF ecoregion)


Notes


References

* *''Landforms of British Columbia'', S. Holland, BC Govt publication, 1976 Interior Plateau Central Interior of British Columbia Plateaus of British Columbia Lava plateaus Volcanism of British Columbia Back-arc volcanism Fraser River {{BritishColumbiaInterior-geo-stub