Lakes that dot Canada's Boreal Shield region offer important information about greenhouse gases and early life forms, their numbers potentially revolutionizing studies into Earth's early life forms.

The Boreal Shield is the the largest of Canada’s 15 terrestrial ecozones, where boreal forests overlap the Canadian Shield. It stretches almost 4,000 kilometres from Newfoundland to Alberta.

An expanse of boreal shield straddling the Ontario-Manitoba border will be Canada's first mixed cultural and natural World Heritage Site, according to an announcement Sunday.

The lakes that dot Canada's Boreal Shield region are similar to the ancient oceans of the Archean Eon, a period over 2½ billion years ago, and offer important information about early life on Earth, ...