Photo: Rock Columns Cliff Face Lake Superior Thunder Bay Ontario

Tall layered columns of rock face the vast expanse of water that is Lake Superior, which is the largest lake of all the Great Lakes. These columns of rock stand guard and look out over the great lake near Thunder Bay in Ontario.

Some of the rocks around the shores of Lake Superior are some of the oldest in the history of the earth; they date back about 4.5 billion and 450 million years old. They date back to the Precambrian era. These rocks were formed when magma forced its way to the surface of the earth, creating the Canadian Shield at the same time.

These cliffs look layered in appearance as they are made up of different layers of sediments. These sediments were deposited on the shoreline of the lake as the mountains around the edge eroded away and forced the sediment to relocate somewhere else. As this compacted and became limestone, shale, dolostone, and taconite, they became some of the cliffs that can be seen in the photograph here.

The area around Lake Superior is very beautiful and green and contains miles and miles of boreal forest. ... continue below the picture...

... Even though the Great Lakes are shrinking and Lake Superior is not as vast as it once was, this area is still important to Canadian history and is one that must be preserved for years to come by any means necessary.

Columns of rock along a cliff face facing Lake Superior near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.