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The Interior Plains is a vast physiographic region that spreads across the Laurentian craton
Laurentia

Laurentia , like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth , bumping into other continents and drifting away....
 of North America. This area was originally formed when craton
Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental crust that has survived the merging and splitting of continents and supercontinents for at least 500 million years....
s collided and welded together 1.9–1.8 billion years ago in the Trans-Hudson orogeny
Trans-Hudson orogeny

The Trans-Hudson orogeny, Trans-Hudsonian orogeny, Trans-Hudson orogen , or Trans-Hudson Orogen Transect , , was the major mountain building event that formed the Precambrian Canadian Shield, the North American craton , and the forging of the initial North American continent....
 during the Paleoproterozoic
Paleoproterozoic

The Paleoproterozoic is the first of the three sub-divisions of the Proterozoic occurring between . This is when the continents first stabilized....
.

Precambrian metamorphic
Metamorphic rock

Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form"....
 and igneous rock
Igneous rock

Igneous rock is one of the three main Rock types . Igneous rock is formed by magma being cooled and becoming solid . They may form with or without crystallization, either below the surface as Intrusion rocks or on the surface as extrusive rocks....
s now form the basement of the Interior Plains and make up the stable nucleus of North America.






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Northamericainteriorplains
The Interior Plains is a vast physiographic region that spreads across the Laurentian craton
Laurentia

Laurentia , like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth , bumping into other continents and drifting away....
 of North America. This area was originally formed when craton
Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental crust that has survived the merging and splitting of continents and supercontinents for at least 500 million years....
s collided and welded together 1.9–1.8 billion years ago in the Trans-Hudson orogeny
Trans-Hudson orogeny

The Trans-Hudson orogeny, Trans-Hudsonian orogeny, Trans-Hudson orogen , or Trans-Hudson Orogen Transect , , was the major mountain building event that formed the Precambrian Canadian Shield, the North American craton , and the forging of the initial North American continent....
 during the Paleoproterozoic
Paleoproterozoic

The Paleoproterozoic is the first of the three sub-divisions of the Proterozoic occurring between . This is when the continents first stabilized....
.

Precambrian metamorphic
Metamorphic rock

Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form"....
 and igneous rock
Igneous rock

Igneous rock is one of the three main Rock types . Igneous rock is formed by magma being cooled and becoming solid . They may form with or without crystallization, either below the surface as Intrusion rocks or on the surface as extrusive rocks....
s now form the basement of the Interior Plains and make up the stable nucleus of North America. With the exception of the Black Hills
Black Hills

The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States....
 of South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
, the entire region has low relief, reflecting more than 500 million years of relative tectonic
Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
 stability.

The Interior plains region of the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
 falls within this area. The Interior Plains were often covered by shallow inland seas
Western Interior Seaway

The Western Interior Seaway, also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, and the North American Inland Sea, was a huge inland sea that split the continent of North America into two halves during most of the mid and late Cretaceous Period ....
. Sediment
Sediment

Sediment is any particulate matter that can be sediment transport by fluid dynamics, and which eventually is deposited.Sediments are most often transported by water transported by wind and glaciers....
s from the shield and the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 4,800 kilometre from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in Canada, to New Mexico, in the United States....
 were deposited in these seas over millions of years. Eventually the sediments were compressed by the weight of the layers above into sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock is one of the three main Rock types . Sedimentary rock is formed by deposition and consolidation of mineral and organic material and from precipitation of minerals from solution....
. Part of the sedimentary rock deposited in these areas consists of coral reef
Coral reef

Coral reefs are aragonite structures produced by living organisms. In most reefs the predominant organisms are colonial cnidarian that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate....
s that formed close to the surface of seas during the Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
 era.

Geology and physiography

The Interior Plains are a vast physiographic division
Physiographic regions of the world

The physiographic regions of the world are a means of defining the Earth's landforms into distinct regions based upon Nevin Fenneman's classic three-tiered approach of divisions, provinces and sections, in 1916, which although they date from the mid 1910s, are still considered basically valid, and were the basis for similar classifications of...
 encompassing 8 distinct physiographic provinces, the Interior Low Plateaus, Great Plains
Great Plains

The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie and steppe which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada....
, Central Lowland, Mackenzie Delta
Mackenzie River

The Mackenzie River originates in Great Slave Lake, in the Northwest Territories, and flows north into the Arctic Ocean. It is the longest river in Canada at 1,738 km and, together with its headstreams the Peace River and the Finlay River, the second longest river in North America at 4,241 km in length....
, Manitoba Lowlands, Northern Boreal Plains, Prairie Grasslands, and the Southern Boreal Plains And Plateaux.

Paleozoic and Mesozoic

Throughout the Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
 and Mesozoic
Mesozoic

The Mesozoic Era is one of three Geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic eon . The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' ....
 eras, the mostly low-lying Interior Plains region remained relatively unaffected by the mountain-building
Orogeny

Orogeny refers to natural mountain building, and may be studied as a tectonic structural event, as a geographical event, and a chronological event: orogenic events cause distinctive structural phenomena and related tectonic activity, affect certain regions of rocks and crust, and happen within a specific period of time....
 tectonic collisions occurring on the western and eastern margins of the continent. During much of the Mesozoic Era, the North American continental interior were mostly well above sea level, with two major exceptions. During part of the Jurassic
Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to  Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
, rising seas flooded the low-lying areas of the continent, forming the Sundance Sea
Sundance Sea

The Sundance Sea was an Epeiric Sea which existed in North America during the mid to late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. It was an arm of what is now the Arctic Ocean, and extended through what is now western Canada into the central western United States....
; in the Cretaceous
Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
, much of the Interior Plains region lay submerged beneath the Western Interior Seaway
Western Interior Seaway

The Western Interior Seaway, also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, and the North American Inland Sea, was a huge inland sea that split the continent of North America into two halves during most of the mid and late Cretaceous Period ....
.

Cenozoic

The Interior Plains continued to receive deposits from the eroding Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 4,800 kilometre from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in Canada, to New Mexico, in the United States....
 to the west and Appalachian
Appalachian Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains or , often called the Appalachians, are a vast mountain range in eastern North America. Definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians....
 and Ozark/Ouachita Mountains
Ouachita Mountains

The Ouachita Mountains are a mountain range located in west central Arkansas and Kiamichi country Oklahoma. The range's subterranean roots may extend as far as central Texas, or beyond it to the current location of the Marathon Uplift....
 to the east and south throughout the era. The flatness of the Interior Plains is a reflection of the platform of mostly flat-lying marine and stream deposits laid down in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.