The vast majority of
North America is on the North American Plate.
Parts of
California and western
Mexico form the partial edge of the
Pacific Plate, with the two plates meeting along the
San Andreas fault.
The continent can be divided into four great regions (each of which contains many sub-regions): the
Great Plains stretching
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic; the geologically young, mountainous west, including the
Rocky Mountains,
the Great Basin, California and Alaska; the raised but relatively flat plateau of the
Canadian Shield in the northeast;
and the varied eastern region, which includes the
Appalachian Mountains, the coastal plain along the
Atlantic seaboard, and the Florida peninsula. Mexico, with its long plateaus and cordilleras, falls largely in the western region,
although the eastern coastal plain does extend south along the Gulf.
