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Boreal Plains Ecozone (CEC)
The Boreal Plains Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a terrestrial Ecozones of Canada, ecozone in the western Canada, Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It also has minor extensions into northeastern British Columbia and south-central Northwest Territories. The region extends over 779,471 km2, of which 58,981 km2 is conserved (7.6 percent). Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada, and Whooping Crane Summer Range, the only nesting and breeding area for the critically endangered whooping crane, are both located in the northern portion of this ecozone. Industry in this ecozone once consisted primarily of forestry and agriculture, but in 1967 Great Canadian Oil Sands, Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited began extracting bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands. Operations there have expanded significantly since 2003, and the oil sands are becoming an increasingly significant economic factor in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boreal Cordillera
The Boreal Cordillera Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial Ecozones of Canada, ecozone occupying most of the northern third of British Columbia and southern half of Yukon. Within it is found Kluane National Park and Reserve, and a small portion of the southern range of Nahanni National Park Reserve. Most of the area's population is based in the city of Whitehorse, Yukon, Whitehorse, and it contains most of Yukon's population. The portion in British Columbia is barely populated. The main economic activity is mining, particularly of gold, which discovery in the region led to the Klondike Gold Rush. In addition to the area's rich mineral deposits, active industries exist in forestry and tourism. Geography This mountainous ecozone is between the Montane Cordillera Ecozone (CEC), Montane Cordillera Ecozone to the south-east and the Taiga Cordillera Ecozone (CEC), Taiga Cordillera Ecozone to the north. The three zones cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whooping Crane Summer Range
Whooping Crane Summer Range is a 16,895-km2 wetland complex in the boreal forests of northern Alberta and southwestern Northwest Territories in Canada. It is the only natural nesting habitat for the endangered whooping crane. On May 24, 1982, it was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance, one of two such sites in Wood Buffalo National Park (the other is Peace-Athabasca Delta). It is owned by the government of Canada, and is administered by Parks Canada with some input from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Encompassing the northeastern portion of Wood Buffalo National Park, about 2,300 km2 (14%) of the wetland is external to the park, on Crown land in the Northwest Territories. It is also classified an Important Bird Area. The range is a complex of contiguous water bodies, primarily lakes and various wetlands, such as marshes and bogs, but also includes streams and ponds. In addition to the whooping crane nesting area, the range includes two sites classif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prairies (ecozone)
The Prairies Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the southern areas of the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It is a productive agricultural area, and is commonly referred to as "Canada's breadbasket". Farmland covers about 94% of the land, and is the dominant domestic economic activity of the zone, as well as an important factor in Canadian foreign trade. Natural gas and oil are abundant in the area. The corresponding Level II ecoregion of the US Environmental Protection Agency is the Great Plains Ecoregion. Geography Following Alberta's border with British Columbia, this ecozone is adjacent to the Montane Cordillera on the west. The two zones are bifurcated by the Boreal Plains about 70 kilometres southwest of Calgary, which also wraps around the remaining extent of the zone north of the United States border toward the Red River Valley. It is part of the Interior Plains, the Canadian extension of the Great Plains, and covers approximat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McGill University
McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, 1801–1895.'' McGill-Queen's University Press, 1980. the university bears the name of James McGill, a Scottish merchant, whose bequest in 1813 established the University of McGill College. In 1885, the name of the university was officially changed to McGill University. Its main campus is on the slope of Mount Royal in downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville-Marie, with a second campus situated in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, west of the main campus on Montreal Island. The university is one of two members of the Association of American Universities located outside the United States, alongside the University of Toronto, and is the only Canadian member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) within the World Economic Forum. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interior Plains
The Interior Plains is a vast physiographic region that spreads across the Laurentian craton of central North America, extending along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains from the Gulf Coast region to the Arctic Beaufort Sea. In Canada, it encompasses the Canadian Prairies separating the Canadian Rockies from the Canadian Shield, as well as the Boreal Plains and Taiga Plains east of the Mackenzie and Richardson Mountains; while in the United States, it includes the Great Plains of the West/Midwest and the tallgrass prairie region to the south of the Great Lakes extending east to the Appalachian Plateau region. Geologic history A series of tectonic plate collisions in the crust that formed the center of the North American continent laid the groundwork for the modern-day interior plains. Mountain building and erosion around the plains as well as flooding from inland seas provided sediments that make up the rock strata of the interior plains. Proterozoic Eon (2500 to 539 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil. Soil consists of a solid collection of minerals and organic matter (the soil matrix), as well as a porous phase that holds gases (the soil atmosphere) and water (the soil solution). Accordingly, soil is a three- state system of solids, liquids, and gases. Soil is a product of several factors: the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and the soil's parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, soil ecologists ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tertiary Period
The Tertiary ( ) is an obsolete Period (geology), geologic period spanning 66 million to 2.6 or 1.8 million years ago. The period began with the extinction of the non-bird, avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic, Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene, Pliocene Epoch. The Tertiary has not been recognised by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) since the late 1980s, with the timespan of the Tertiary now being split in to the earlier Paleogene and the more recent Neogene periods, though the Tertiary continues to be used in some scientific publications. Historical use of the term The term Tertiary was first used by Giovanni Arduino (geologist), Giovanni Arduino during the mid-18th century. He classified geologic time into primitive (or primary), secondary, and tertiary periods based on observations of geology in Northern Italy. Later a fourth period, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ninth and longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic. The name is derived from the Latin , 'chalk', which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation . The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high Sea level#Local and eustatic, eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow Inland sea (geology), inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites, and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world was largely ice-free, although there is some evidence of brief periods of glaciation during the cooler first half, and forests extended to the poles. Many of the dominant taxonomic gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bedrock is often called an outcrop. The various kinds of broken and weathered rock material, such as soil and subsoil, that may overlie the bedrock are known as regolith. Engineering geology The surface of the bedrock beneath the soil cover (regolith) is also known as ''rockhead'' in engineering geology, and its identification by digging, drilling or geophysical methods is an important task in most civil engineering projects. Superficial deposits can be very thick, such that the bedrock lies hundreds of meters below the surface. Weathering of bedrock Exposed bedrock experiences weathering, which may be physical or chemical, and which alters the structure of the rock to leave it susceptible to erosion. Bedrock may also experience subsur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Sands
Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum). Significant bitumen deposits are reported in Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Venezuela. The estimated worldwide deposits of oil are more than . Proven reserves of bitumen contain approximately 100 billion barrels, and total natural bitumen reserves are estimated at worldwide, of which , or 70.8%, are in Alberta, Canada. Crude bitumen is a thick, sticky form of crude oil, and is so viscous that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons such as light crude oil or natural-gas condensate. At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses. The Orinoco Belt in Venezuela is sometimes described as oil sands, but these deposits are non-bituminous, falling instead into the category of heavy or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athabasca Oil Sands
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market. As of 2023, Canada's oil sands industry, along with Western Canada and offshore petroleum facilities near Newfoundland and Labrador, continued to increase production and were projected to increase by an estimated 10% in 2024 representing a potential record high at the end of the year of approximately 5.3 million barrels per day (bpd). The surge in production is attributed mainly to growth in Alberta's oilsands. The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipelinethe only oil pipeline to the West Coastwill further facilitate this increase, with its capacity set to increase significantly, to 890,000 barrels per day from 300,000 bpd currently. Despite this growth, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Canadian Oil Sands
Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited was a Canadian heavy oil company that existed between 1953 and 1979. In 1962, GCOS received a permit from the Alberta government to build a 31,500 barrels-per-day synthetic crude plant in the Athabasca oil sands. The following year, Sun Oil acquired an 83 percent stake in the company and in 1964 construction of the plant began. When GCOS opened its plant on 30 September 1967, it became the first company in the world to produce heavy oil commercially. In 1979, Sun merged its Canadian subsidiary, the Sun Oil Company, with GCOS to form Suncor Suncor Energy Inc. () is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-largest public compan .... History Pre-history, 1920–1953 Great Canadian Oil Sands originated in the early 1920s, when a group of policemen from New York acquired oil leases in Atha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
