What is Great Plains?

Great Plains, are nothing but the physiographic region which is located in the central Canada and also in the United States.

The great plains region has a vast area of high plateau which is called as the plains and it extends from the northwestern parts of Canada, which passes through the parts of the

Regions covering in Canada

i)Northwest Territories

ii)Alberta

iii)Saskatchewan and

iv)Manitoba.

Regions covering in USA

When we consider the regions in the United States, the great plains continues south through

i)The sections of Montana

ii)North and South Dakota

iii)Minnesota

iv)Wyoming

v)Nebraska

vi)Kansas

vii)Colorado

viii)Oklahoma

ix)New Mexico and

x)Texas.

Border region

This region is bordered by the Canadian Shield and the Central Lowland of the United States,on the east and on the west by the Rocky Mountains.The Great plains are usually called as the Interior Plains in Canada.Apart from this these plains also feature useful productive grain along with livestock farms and also extensive petroleum and coal deposits, which are found in this region

Coverage Area

This great plains cover a area of about 3.2 million square kmilometer which includes

#)1.8 million square kilometer in Canada and

#)1.4 million square kilometer in the United States.

Canada occupies most of the portion of the  Great Plains about 18 percent and 15 percent by USA.In these plains the height may vary in different region.But report says that in general the plains have theri Greates heights near the mountains in the west.

Elevation of Great Plains

With respect to height the Alberta Plain in Canada, has an average height of 2300 feet and if we go further east, the Saskatchewan Plain 1600 feet of elevation, and also the Manitoba Lowland averages a elevation of 1000 feet. But when we consider United States, these elevations decrease from west to east and a maximum elevation of 3300 feet is found near the Rocky Mountains. In the Mississippi Valley, the elevation of the Great plains is in the range of1,000 ft.

These Elevations gradually falls as the land slopes toward the Gulf of Mexico. usually we can find sedimentary rocks under the surface of the Great Plains and historians reveal the information that these rocks were formed some 100 to 500 million years ago,i.e., it might have formed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, where shallow seas covered the region much of the time.Usually the sediments which are found at the bottom of these seas are subjected to undergo an enormous pressure so that it gets turned into the rocks such as limestone and sandstone.

Age of Great plains

Archaeologist also done research in these plains and they observe that the last major geological event in these area would occurred between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago.Apart from these information another important thing is that huge ice sheet covers the Great Plains in Canada and in some parts of the northern United States.When the ice retreats it usualy left behind some glacial deposits.

Glacial Deposits

These glacial deposits,usually vary in depth from a few meters to over 30 meters,and they cover the older sedimentary rocks. It is these glacial deposits, created the areas of rolling topography in the Great plains and also the flat lowlands of the the region were formerly nothing but the bottoms of glacial lakes.

Badlands present

The continuous Great Plains were broken by the badlands of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska. These badlands were usually formed by streams which cuts deeply into the soft sedimentary rocks,and this lead to the exposure Mesozoic rocks,which is  a type of sedimentary rock and it contains the dinosaur fossils.

Climate

When it comes to the climate of these Grat Plains, it mostly has a semiarid climate,that includes extreme temperature range is extreme and sparse rainfall and it is mostly unpredictable and does not provide enough precipitation for the trees to grow, and usuall the grassland is suitable for the natural vegetation.

However in northern  parts of Alberta and also in the Northwest Territories, the summer is shorter and cooler,and this limited precipitation makes suitable for the existance of the northern coniferous forest.

Resources

Apart from this many natural resources are also found in the Great Plains and these includes fertile black and dark brown soils which is suitable for the grain agriculture, and  also the grasslands which provides a natural range which helps the cattles to graze.Within the sedimentary basins of these Great plains, we can find  Coal, natural gas, oil, potash, and sulfur.

Population

Considering the population,there are approximately 15 million people who live in the Great Plains and in these 15 million around 5 million are in Canada’s Great Plains, and the reamining 10 million occupy in the Great Plains of the United States.

The major metropolitan regions in the Great Plains that comes under Canada includes

i)Calgary - 11.07 lakhs

ii)Edmonton - 10.50 lakhs

iii)Winnipeg - 7.06 lakhs

With respect to USA the largest metropolitan areas on the Great plains includes

i)Denver, Colorado - 24.08 lakhs

ii)San Antonio, Texas -  19.42 lakhs

iii)Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - 11.72 lakhs

All these population detains are according to 2006 census.