What are the major physical features of North America?

I will go
into more detail about some of the more prominent physical features mentioned in the previous
post.

The western edge of North America coincides with the plate tectonic
boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The results are several
physical features: the San Andreas Fault, the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the Cascade mountain
range (which includes Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier, both in Washington State), and the
Aleutian trench and Aleutian islands.

In the north, the oldest part of the
continent is the Canadian Shield, a vast horseshoe-shaped area of land around Hudson
Bay.

The Appalachian mountains stretch from Alabama to Maine. They are the
result of a continental-continental plate collision and millions of years of weathering and
erosion. Much of the materials has been washed down to the Mississippi River, which has the
third largest drainage basin in the world. The river ends in the Gulf Coast, characterized by
low hills and deltas of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Colorado Plateau is
characterized by ancient volcanic moutnains, broad plateaus, and canyons, including the Grand
Canyon and the Colorado River.

The Basin and Range region, between the
Colorado Plateau/Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast, is characterized by mostly north-south
valleys and mountains. Large lakes often form (the best known of which is the Great Salt Lake in
Utah).

The sedimentary environments of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains
have made them prime sources of oil and gas formation.