of volcanic activity occurred throughout central Canada during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The source for this volcanism was a long-lived and stationary area of molten rock called the New England or Great Meteor hotspot. The first event erupted kimberlite magma in the James Bay lowlands region of northern Ontario 180 million years ago, creating the Attawapiskat kimberlite field. Another kimberlite event spanned a period of 13 million years 165 to 152 million years ago, creating the Kirkland Lake kimberlite field in northeastern Ontario. Another period of kimberlite volcanism occurred in northeastern Ontario 154 to 134 million years ago, creating the Lake Timiskaming kimberlite field. As the North American Plate moved westward over the New England hotspot, the New England hotspot created the magma intrusions of the Monteregian Hills in Montreal in southern Quebec. These intrusive stocks have been variously interpreted as the feeder intrusions of long extinct volcanoes that would have been active 125 million years ago, or as intrusions that never breached the surface in volcanic activity. The lack of a noticeable hotspot track west of the Monteregian Hills might be due either to failure of the New England mantle plume to pass through massive strong rock of the Canadian Shield, the lack of noticeable intrusions, or to strengthening of the New England mantle plume when it approached the Monteregian Hills region. About 250 million years ago during the early Triassic period, Atlantic Canada lay roughly in the middle of a giant continent called Pangaea. This supercontinent began to fracture 220 million years ago when the Earth's lithosphere was being pulled apart from extensional stress, creating a divergent plate boundary known as the Fundy Basin. The focus of the rifting began somewhere between where present-day eastern North America and northwestern Africa were joined. During the formation of the Fundy Basin, volcanic activity never stopped as shown by the going eruption of lava along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; an underwater volcanic mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean formed as a result of continuous seafloor spreading between eastern North America and northwestern Africa. As the Fundy Basin continued to form 201 million years ago, a series of basaltic lava flows were erupted, forming a volcanic mountain range on the mainland portion of southwestern Nova Scotia known as North Mountain, stretching from Brier Island in the south to Cape Split in the north. This series of lava flows cover most of the