Download Chapter 5 - Geocivics

LAND FORMS
 Western Mountain Ranges: The Pacific Ocean forms the western border of both the
United States and Canada.
 Paralleling the coastline are a series of mountain ranges that were formed by the
collision of two tectonic plates millions of years ago.
 The mountain system includes:
 Alaska Range, Coast Range, Cascade Range, and Sierra Nevada.
 Together, these mountains are called the Pacific Ranges.
LAND FORMS
 Another western chain called the Rocky Mountains lies east of the Pacific Ranges.
 Stretch more than 3,000 miles.
 The area that lies between the Pacific Ranges and the Rocky Mountains is known
as the inter-montane basins and plateaus.
 The northern and southern parts of this dry expanse are plateaus, or high, level
surfaces.
 The natural activity that plateaus produce unusual landforms, such as the Grand
Canyon and various flat-topped natural elevations called mesas.
LAND FORMS
 Plains: The area east of the Rockies marks the beginning of the Great Plains.
 Great Plains is a broad, flat upland extending for about 400 miles from the Rocky
Mountains through the central parts of Canada and the United States.
LAND FORMS
 Eastern Mountains and Lowlands: Appalachian Mountains lie to the easts of the
plains.
 Second longest mountain range.
 East and south of the Appalachians in the U.S. lie the coastal lowlands.
WATER SYSTEMS
Water Systems:
 A continental divide is a line that separates rivers that flow toward the opposite
ends of a continent.
 In Canada, the Continental Divide joins another divide known as the Height of
Land, which separates the waters flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
WATER SYSTEMS
 Rivers in the U.S. whose headwaters, or water sources, are found in the Rocky
Mountains include the Colorado River.
 The headwaters of the Rio Grande, Mackenzie River, and Missouri River are also in
the Rockies.
 Each of these rivers has many tributaries, or brooks, rivers, and streams that
feed their waters into one river.
WATER SYSTEMS
 Mississippi River is the largest river in the U.S. and Canada.
 The U.S. and Canada also include many lakes formed as a result of the Ice Age.
 Some of this water blocked by glacial dams became lakes.
 In northern Canada two major lakes, Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake.
 As the glaciers moved over the land, they also gouged out and scoured hollows in
the rocks they passed.
 As the glaciers receded, these hollows filled with water, the Great Lakes.
RESOURCES
Resources:
 The major freshwater fisheries of the United States include the inland waters of the
southern states and the Great Lakes.
 The Great Lakes are the center of the freshwater fishing industry in Canada.
 Mineral resources of the United States and Canada include gold, silver, nickel, iron,
copper, uranium, and zinc.
 Rocky Mountains contain a great wealth of gold, silver, and copper.
 Parts of the Canadian Shield have deposits of iron and nickel.
 Canadian officials estimate that the mostly unexplored northern areas of
Canada may hold as much as 40 percent of the country’s mineral rich.
RESOURCES
 Important energy resources energy resources, such as oil, natural gas, and coal,
are found throughout both nations.
 Rich coal deposits are found in the Appalachian Mountains and in the central
and western parts of the U.S. and Canada.
 Timber reserves include the huge forests that cover about one-third of each nation.
 Both U.S. and Canada have great parts for agriculture.
 The Great Plains and the Central Lowlands in the United States have some of the
world’s most fertile soil.
CLIMATE
Climate:
 Climate Regions: Winds, oceans currents, and protective mountains along the
Pacific coast help create a marine west coast climate from northern California
through British Columbia to the southern border of Alaska.
 As they blow eastward, the Pacific winds encounter the Pacific Ranges.
 As the winds are forced over the mountains, the air-cools and moisture is
released.
 This means that the west coast enjoys tremendous rainfall, and some parts of
the area receive more than 100 inches of ran each year.
CLIMATE
CLIMATE
 The Pacific Ranges also create a rain shadow, which limits the amount of rainfall
east of the mountains.
 This place of plateaus and basins, bordered in the east by the Rocky Mountains, is
known for its hot, dry air.
 The only deserts in the northern part of North America are found here.
 Deserts include: Great Salt Lake Desert, Blackrock Desert, and Death Valley.
CLIMATE
 Large parts of Canada and Alaska lie in a subarctic climate zone with very cold
winters.
 Two-thirds of Canada has January temperatures that aver below 0° F. Winter
temperatures of -70°F have been recorded in some places.
 A persistent high-pressure cell in this area spawns the cold winds that chill much
of the central United States during the winter.
 Farther north, lands across the Arctic coastlines line in a tundra climate zone.
 These areas experience bitter winters and cool summers.
CLIMATE
 The Great Plains are far from oceans or other large bodies of water moderate
climate.
 The Great Palins are not completely dry because moisture travels with winds that
blow north along the Rockies from the Gulf of Mexico and south from the Arctic
region.
 The region is classified as a humid continental climate region with bitter
winters and hot summers.
 The humid continental climate region continues east to the Atlantic.
 Most of the southern states, however, are in a humid subtropical climate region.
SEASONAL WEATHER CONDITIONS
 Seasonal Weather Conditions: Canada and U.S. are affected by seasonal weather
conditions.
 In winter much of northern America experiences blizzards.
 Blizzards are snowstorms with winds excess of 35 miles per hour,
temperatures below freezing, and visibility of less than 500 feet for 3 hours or
more.
SEASONAL WEATHER CONDITIONS
 Summers are plagued by tornadoes in Great Plains and the eastern portion of
the U.S.
 Tornadoes: swirling columns of air whose winds can reach 300 miles per hour.
 Hurricanes: ocean storms hundreds of miles wide with winds of 74 miles per
hour or more.
 Threaten the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines.
 Typhoons: or Pacific hurricanes, threaten Hawaii and other Pacific islands
each year.
 Some seasonal weather conditions are improvements over the normal patterns
for a climate zone.
 For example, a warm wind called the Chinook blows down the slops of the
Rockies in winter and early spring.
VEGETATION
Vegetation: Before the arrival of settlers, almost half of present-day U.S. and Canada,
estimated 3 million square miles, was covered with forests.
 Despite human pressures on the land’s resources, a vast forest area still spans
subarctic Canada.
 Forests also cover the sides of the western mountain ranges until they reach the
timberline, or the elevation above which trees cannot grow.
VEGETATION
 The Great Plains of the United States and Canada were once a prairie region, a
treeless expanse of grasses whose tangled roots formed dense layers of vegetation
called sod.
 Settlers, however, soon populated the plains, broke up the sod, and used it to
build homes.
 This caused the dust bowl conditions in the 1930.
 Since then, scientific farming methods have improved conditions on the Great
Plains, and the region now supplies most of North America’s wheat.
 Dust Bowl Video:
 http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos/america-blackblizzard