AbstractsEarth & Environmental Science

Although Labrador was the first part of the new world to be discovered, its inhospitable climate and terrain have resulted in its being one of the least known areas of North America. Owing to the inaccessibility of the interior, it was not until the last few years of the past century that anyone had entered the country with the express purpose of studying its geology. However, during the last decade the added strategic importance of the country, along with the exploitation of the vast deposits of rich iron ore, have led to more rapid opening up of the hinterland of Labrador. For many years it has been thought that the Ungava peninsula harboured the centre of the great Labrador ice sheet that swept out from this area to bury many thousands of square miles under great thicknesses of ice. Unfortunately owing to its inaccessibility, glacial features have been studied in only a few isolated areas, and the knowledge gained has been fragmentary. Thus nearly all the data concerning the Pleistocene history has been gained from southern Canada and the northern United States. This drawback was in part overcome when the R.C.A.F. took aerial photographs of a large proportion of the territory. While these photographs do not eliminate the need for field observations, they greatly facilitate the work and permit large areas to be studied in a very short time.