The Canaian Shield — also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien (French) — is a large geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It has a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada and stretches North from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half the country. It also includes most of Greenland[clarify] and extends into the United States as the Adirondack Mountains and the Northern Highland. The Canadian Shield is U-shaped, but almost circular, which gives it an appearance of a warrior's shield or a giant horseshoe, and is a subsection of the Laurentia craton signifying the area of greatest glacial impact (scraping down to bare rock) creating the thin soils.