The Torngat Mountains are a mountain range on the Labrador Peninsula at the northern tip of Newfoundland and Labrador and eastern Quebec. They are part of the Arctic Cordillera. The mountains form a peninsula that separates Ungava Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.
Etymology
The name Torngat is derived from an Inuktitut word meaning place of spirits, sometimes interpreted as place of evil spirits. Geologists recognize the gneisses of the Torngats as a part of the Canadian Shield or Laurentian Upland, which, composing the very old North American Craton, split from the continent of Rodinia roughly 750 million years ago to form the geologic core of North America.
However, the mountain-building or orogeny of the Torngats took place much more recently, and is characteristic of the folding and faulting that defines the series of geological events known as Arctic Cordillera. This, according to some, makes the Torngats, as mountains, "distinct compared to the surrounding Precambrian Canadian Shield," though they are ultimately composed of shield rock. Evidence of this dramatic cordilleran folding and faulting characterizing the Torngat Mountains can be seen distinctly in rocks where the North American Craton long ago collided with the Nain Craton, later exposed in cross-section by glacial scouring, especially at Saglek Fjord.
Glaciation
The ranges of the Torngat Mountains are separated by deep fjords and finger lakes surrounded by sheer rock walls. The fjords were produced by glaciation. The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of the mountains at least once, however during the last ice age the coverage was more limited.
Currently, there are over 100 active small mountain glaciers in the Torngat Mountains with a total of about 195 ice masses in the region.