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The Western Zone has been part of North America for at least the last billion years (1000 million), but the other two zones are relative newcomers. Geological Subdivisions of Newfoundland The bringing together of ancient oceans and continents has given Newfoundland three geological zones: the Western, Central and Eastern zones.
- Exploration and Settlement of Newfoundland - Heritage
Exploration and Settlement. The region of Newfoundland and...
- Exploration and Settlement of Newfoundland - Heritage
Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day Newfoundland and Labrador were inhabited for millennia by different groups of Indigenous peoples. The first brief European contact with Newfoundland and Labrador came around 1000 AD when the Vikings briefly settled in L'Anse aux Meadows. In 1497, European explorers and fishermen ...
The earliest mention is in the Newfoundland Mercantile Journal, Thursday September 16, 1824, indicating the St. John's Cricket Club was an established club at this time. [245] The St. John's Cricket club was one of the first cricket clubs in North America. Other centres were at Harbour Grace, Twillingate and Trinity. The heyday of the game was ...
- Overview
- Relief, drainage, and soils
Newfoundland and Labrador, province of Canada composed of the island of Newfoundland and a larger mainland sector, Labrador, to the northwest. It is the newest of Canada’s 10 provinces, having joined the confederation only in 1949; its name was officially changed to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001. The island, which was named the “newfoundelande,” or New Found Land, by late 15th-century explorers, lies athwart the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from Labrador by the narrow Strait of Belle Isle and from Nova Scotia, to the southwest, by Cabot Strait. The French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon lies off the coast of the Burin Peninsula in southeastern Newfoundland. Labrador is bordered to the north and east by the Labrador Sea (northwestern arm of the Atlantic Ocean) and to the south and west by the province of Quebec.
Newfoundland and Labrador is the most easterly part of North America, and its position on the Atlantic has given it a strategic importance in defense, transportation, and communications. Its capital city, St. John’s (on Newfoundland), for instance, is closer to the coast of Ireland than it is to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Of perhaps greater significance have been the great fish stocks that inhabited the Grand Banks and other fishing grounds to the east and south of Newfoundland, spurring the development of numerous communities stretched along some 14,400 miles (23,200 km) of deeply indented wave-battered seacoast. These fisheries have been the single most important factor in shaping the history and character of the land and its people. Area 156,453 square miles (405,212 square km). Pop. (2021) 510,550.
The province’s two main components—Newfoundland island and Labrador—must be treated as separate physiographic regions. The island, roughly triangular in shape and with an area (excluding associated islands) of 42,031 square miles (108,860 square km), is part of the Appalachian geologic province of North America, in which the landforms run from southwest to northeast and are characterized by continental drift, volcanic action, crustal deformation, ice erosion, and deposition. These forces have produced a highly complex geologic structure, with ancient rocks of Europe and Africa on the east, newer Appalachian rocks on the west, and the bed of the ancient ocean squeezed up between them. On the west coast the land rises abruptly from a narrow coastal plain to the Long Range Mountains, which reach a maximum height of 2,670 feet (814 metres). The mountains give way to a plateau that slopes gently downward to the northeastern coast, with its many headlands, islands, and bays. The plateau is undulating and dotted with thousands of lakes and ponds, numerous streams, and rivers, including the Exploits, Gander, and Humber. The coastal terrain is hilly and rugged; the coast itself is marked by numerous bays and fjords, and there are many offshore islands.
Labrador, with an area of 113,641 square miles (294,330 square km), is geologically part of the Canadian Shield, which comprises some of the world’s oldest rocks. Although most of the rocks are igneous and metamorphic formations of Precambrian age (i.e., older than about 540 million years), the Labrador trough, in the west, contains softer sedimentary deposits and includes some of North America’s most extensive iron-ore deposits. In the far north the Torngat Mountains rise abruptly from the sea to a height of 5,420 feet (1,652 metres) at Mount Caubvick (Mount D’Iberville), on the Labrador-Quebec border. The interior is like a giant saucer dotted with lakes and dissected by rivers that break through the eastern saucer rim to discharge into the Labrador Sea. The indented coastline has countless offshore islands, fjords, and coves, exposed and barren headlands, and relatively lush river valleys.
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Sep 12, 2010 · Some portion of its coast was undoubtedly one of the first parts of the continent seen by Europeans. Its total area is 405,720 km 2, of which Labrador makes up almost three-quarters (294,330 km 2). The island of Newfoundland is the easternmost region of Canada, while Labrador is located on the mainland to the northwest.
For more than a century before the establishment of French or English colonies in North America the fishermen of Western Europe came year after year to Newfoundland to fill their boats with cod for the markets of the Old World . Of the earliest exploration and discovery of Newfoundland little is known. It is generally accepted that Norsemen ...
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Exploration and Settlement. The region of Newfoundland and Labrador was the first stretch of North America's Atlantic coastline to be explored by Europeans, but it was one of the last to be settled in force and formally colonized. The Norse arrived from Greenland about 1000 A.D. and established settlements here during the following century.
