Mackenzie Large Igneous Province

Mackenzie Large Igneous Province
MLIP
Map of the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province and its sub-features. Blue star marks the approximate focal point for the 1,270 million year old magmatic activity.
Country	Canada
Regions	Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
Part of	Canadian Shield
Area	2,700,000 km2 (1,042,476 sq mi)
Period	Mesoproterozoic

The Mackenzie Large Igneous Province (MLIP) is a major Mesoproterozoic large igneous province of the southwestern, western and northwestern Canadian Shield in Canada. It consists of a group of related igneous rocks that were formed during a massive igneous event starting about 1,270 million years ago. The large igneous province extends from the Arctic in Nunavut to near the Great Lakes in Northwestern Ontario where it meets with the smaller Matachewan dike swarm. Included in the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province are the large Muskox layered intrusion, the Coppermine River flood basalt sequence and the massive northwesterly trending Mackenzie dike swarm.

As a large igneous province, it is an extremely large area of related igneous rocks that were emplaced over an extremely short geological time span. The igneous rocks comprising the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province originated from processes not associated with normal plate tectonics and seafloor spreading. It is one of the several large igneous provinces scattered throughout the Canadian landscape, which can be thousands of kilometres in volume and area. The Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is also one of the largest Proterozoic magmatic provinces on Earth, as well as the world's largest and best-preserved continental flood basalt terrain. Igneous rocks of the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province are generally mafic in composition, including basalt and gabbro.