The combination of rising sea levels from the meltwater and the sinking peripheral lands allowed the Atlantic Ocean to flow into the rift basin. Its hard, ancient rock edges prevent the bay from expanding inland, effectively capping the western and southern boundaries.
Hudson Bay Rift Basin Formation and Geological History
As it moved, the immense weight of the ice acted like a bulldozer, scraping and gouging the softer rock of the rift basin, deepening and widening it. The land, no longer suppressed, began a slow process of isostatic rebound, rising back upward and further defining the basin's shape.
This immense body of water, often mistaken for a simple extension of the Atlantic Ocean, is actually a distinct marginal sea with a geological origin tied to the very birth of the planet. The Tectonic Rifting: Hudson Bay as a Failed Rift Plate Divergence and Crustal Thinning Approximately 750 million years ago, during the Neoproterozoic era, the supercontinent Rodinia began to break apart.
Hudson Bay Rift Basin Formation and Tectonic Rifting History
This ancient, cold, and rigid rock was fundamentally different from the younger, more pliable sediments surrounding it, making it resistant to the forces that would later reshape the continent. Ongoing Processes: A Dynamic System.
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