The Saint Lawrence River System, Atlantic Coast of Qu?bec

by Jean-Marie M. Dubois, Univ de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Coastlines of Canada

Abstract:

At the 1:250,000 scale, Quebec has 13 773 km of coasts, 6 772 km of which belong solely to the Saint Lawrence River System. This system can be divided into six portions: river, limnetic estuary, brackish estuary, maritime estuary, gulf, and the estuary of the Saguenay River. More than half of these coasts are rocky while the remaining are mostly sandy, with a few hundred kilometers of wetlands and gravel beaches. Most of the Cote-Nord of the Saint Lawrence is located in the crystalline rocks of the Canadian Shield, with a few limestone remnants, especially the Mingan and Anticosti Islands. A third of the Southern costs is located in the sedimentary rocks of the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the other two-thirds in the metamamorphic sedimentary rocks of the Appalachians. The shorelines of the Saint Lawrence System are described according to their configuration (intended or regular), their differential elevation (flat or cliff-type), their lithology (bedrock, cobbles and boulders, gravel, sand, clay and mud), their geomorphological origin (glacial, glacio-fluvial, deltaic, marine), their degree of artificiality (type of artificial structures) and their dynamics (erosion, accretion, subsidence, emergence).

Subject Headings: Rocks | Estuaries | River systems | Sediment | Wetlands (coastal) | Shoreline protection | Rivers and streams | Canada | Quebec | Appalachian

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