Page 7 - Wildlife of the World

PEAKS AND PRAIRIES | 23
Newfoundland Nova Scotia

Cape Cod TLANTIC OCEAN APPALACHIANS The oldest mountains in North America include the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge ranges. The region is largely forested and has rivers rich in fish and invertebrates.

Laurentian A

St Lawrence The Everglades Straits of Florida DEAN’S BLUE HOLE Located in the Bahamas, the world’s deepest salt water blue hole plunges to depths of 663 ft (202 m). A blue hole is a water- filled sinkhole formed by rainwater seeping into limestone bedrock. The entrance is now underwater.

Lake Ontario Lake Okeechobee Caribbean Sea
d
l
Niagara Falls Ohio
e Appalachian Mountains Blue Ridge
i Lake Erie
h
Lake Huron
S Tennessee Alabama
Yucatan Península
n eat BLUE DAMSELFISH
a Gr Lakes Lake Michigan Mississippi Delta Gulf of Mexico
i Lake Superior Mississippi
AMERICA
d Illinois
a
n Arkansas
a
C TH

Lake Winnipeg G r e a t P l a i n s

Missouri Platte Kansas Red River Rio Grande Sierra Madre del Sur
Lake Manitoba NOR Sierra Madre Oriental Lago de Chapala

North Saskatchewan South Saskatchewan Yellowstone Sierra Madre Occidental GULF OF CALIFORNIA Also known as the Sea of Cortés, the Gulf of California lies between the west coast of mainland Mexico and the peninsula of Baja California. Around 800 species of fish are found in the gulf, but they are threatened by overfishing.

n s Colorado Plateau
i Colorado
a Snake
t Salt Lake Gulf of California
n Great Canyon
u Grand
o
M Great Basin Sonoran Desert B a j a C a l i f o r n i a

Mount St Helens 2,549m Mt Whitney 4,418m -88m Mojave Desert
Sierra Nevada Death Valley

Vancouver Island Coast Ranges GRAND CANYON Late spring on the lowlands of the Midwestern prairies, where there are no mountains to block air flow, creates the perfect conditions for tornadoes to form. These are columns of violently rotating air that develop within storm clouds and are in contact with the ground. The most powerful tornadoes occur almost exclusively in North America.

WESTERN CORDILLERA This chain of mountain ranges includes the Coastal Ranges, Rocky Mountains, and Sierra Nevada, and runs southeast from Alaska to western Mexico. Most of it formed millions of years ago as an ancient oceanic plate moved under the North American plate. This ancient plate has now almost completely disappeared. continental (North subducting American) plate oceanic plate mountain range Carved by the passage of the Colorado River over 17 million years, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long and up to 1 mile (1.8 k