Ølve- Mining

All in all there are ten known copper mines and two iron mines on the Ølve peninsula. Geologically, the nine mines on Varaldsøy Island also should be figured in. The industry began at Lilledal in 1642 wth the mining of iron ore. From Jernsmauget by Dyråsen, the iron ore was sent to the iron works in eastern Norway.

Årsand

Below a south facing, steep rock at Årsand, there is one of the strangest ancient relics in the whole of Hordaland. The jutting rock wall forms a shallow flagstone – Geithilderen. Parts of the rock wall are covered by a light lime crust and on the crust figures have been painted in golden and rusty red colours.

Ålvik

Vågenes

On Vågenes, on one of the prominences out toward Eitrevågen, one finds garnets in anorthosite. The garnets are both older, and not least bigger, than average.

Vikse

Vesoldo

Folds are to be found everywhere in the remains of the Caledonian mountain chain. Some were formed during the collision with Greenland, others stem from the time when the mountain chain collapsed. Few can compare with the giant fold that remains in the mountain area around Tørvikenuten, Vesoldo and Hellefjellet.

Verftet

Today the name “Verftet” is linked to both a district and conglomeration of buildings lying protected by Fredriksberg castle. The original shipyard was founded in the 1780s by Georg Brunchorst and Georg Vedeler. It was called Gerogenes Verft (the shipyards of the Georgs), and here ships were both built and repaired in the years after 1786.

Vangdal

At Salthamaren in Vangdalsberget it is thought that salt was burned some time in history, and deep layers of coal in the ground show that fire has been made up here several times. But they were hardly salt-burners, the first people who stopped here. Some of them carved figures into the rock. On top of the rocky outcrop, furthest out on the cliff, a group of Stone Age hunters carved animal figures. More than 1,500 years later Bronze Age farmers drew ship figures at the foot of the rock. Both these works of art - some of the oldest in Hordaland – are still visible, carved in the rock at Salthamaren.

Urangsvågen-Rubbestadneset

In 1868 the first stone workers came to Rubbestadneset to take out the granite for the Skoltegrunns Pier, predecessor of the Skoltegrunns wharf in Bergen. Later granite was also taken out from the area, around Innværs Fjord and UransvågenN. The activity probably peaked around 1900, with over 40 men at work. 15 years later, it was finished.

Ulven

In the region of Ulven phyllite occurs with Hordaland's youngest fossils, and a beautiful quartz conglomerate. The phyllite and conglomerate got squeezed into the bottom of an ancient oceanic crust, made of gabbro and greenstone, in the heart of the Caledonide mountain chain.