tirsdag 17. mars 2015

Where on Google Earth #478

Trying to keep up the speed after finding Felix' WoGE #477, I present WoGE #478 without waiting for confirmation.


This is more a phenomenon than an occurrence - and recent work suggests that the traditional explanation is wrong.


As always, post a comment with latitude and longitude and write something about the (geologic/geographic/hydrographic) feature in the picture. If you win, you get to host the next one.

Previous WoGEs are collected by Felix on his blog and a KML file.

3 kommentarer:

  1. 66.338°, 12.537° some few islands near Lovund Norway. The area is typical for the geomorphical landform "Strandflat" . "Frost weathering and processes involving ocean ice were the most important forces creating the strandflat. This process is still going on and can be observed at Svalbard. An important moment is that strandflat only are found in areas that earlier was covered by ice. In cold areas ocean ice is able to cover the coast as a package. Stones, gravel and sand, as well as boulders, may freeze under the ice, and thereafter be broken off the land and transported away. The tide was able to lift these ice-packages and the water stream moved them away. This is a process that was functioning in the shoreline, where the tide is running. Wave erosion and glaciers had only a minor role in the creating the strandflat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strandflat]

    SvarSlett
  2. Correct!
    Except that that explanation doesn't quite work. On many of the higher remnants, there are old beach deposits at a wide range of altitudes above current sea level. And if the wave/ice raft explanation were correct, then why is the strandflat only found in one part of the Norwegian coast, and not others?
    Currently a new hypothesis is gaining favour, based on geophysical measurements and drill cores: It is a remnant of tropical deep weathering during the Jurassic. The occasional mountains were less weathered, sounds and fjords represent fracture zones where the weathering reached deeper. And then, quite correctly, glaciation and waves removed any loose material which was not already removed by older erosion.

    SvarSlett
  3. Ah well, listen to two experts and you get 4 opinions. :-D

    To keep the speed up here is : http://woge-felix.blogspot.de/2015/03/where-on-google-earth-479.html

    SvarSlett