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The delta at the outflow of Storelvi in Granvinsvatnet.

Granvinsvassdraget

24.06.2018 - 15:36

After the ice age, Granvin Fjord reached all the way up under Skjervsfjossen waterfall. Just a thousand years later, as a result of the rising of the land after the ice melted, this whole inner part of the fjord freed itself of the sea and became Granvinsvatnet lake. In spite of this rise in elevation, this waterway is still navigable for fish: Sea trout have wandered into Granvinsvatnet in more recent times and evolved to become freshwater trout. And salmon and sea trout made the journey 13 kilometres up the Storelvi river.

On the trail toward Kyrkjedøri, a half hour walk from Finse station, we find these small ridges

Trail toward Kyrkjedøri

04.12.2018 - 15:04

Roughly 550 million years ago, what is now Finse lay at the bottom of the sea - the remains of mud and clay that were deposited in this sea have ended up on the roofs of Norway. Also the thrust sheet from the continental collision has found its way to Finse, after a several hundred kilometre-long, trek through the mountains, that took several tens of millions of years to complete.

Fantasy drawing of the animal life that reigned when the Bjorøy layer was deposited during the younger part of the Jurassic Period.

Vatlestraumen

12.06.2018 - 20:06

There are coal bits hidden in the sand under Vatlestraumen. These remains from a geological layer from the Jurassic Period were discovered when the undersea Bjorøy Tunnel was built in 1994. Oil- and gas reservoirs in the Troll Field in the sea west of Hordaland are from the same time. It is, nonetheless, quite surprising to find bedrock from dinosaur time inside of the outer islands of western Norway. On the Scandinavian mainland north of Denmark, there are only a very few places where one f inds rock from this time in earth history.

Holmengrå

Holmengrå

07.12.2018 - 12:45

Holmengrå is the only place in Hordaland where we find traces of the abrasion that is supposed to have transformed Western Norway from a Himalaya-like high mountain landscape during the earth's Paleozoic Era, to a flat lowlands terrain during the Mezosoic Era. Just 400 million years ago, large and small stones plummeted down from the high mountains. Some of these stones became incorporated into the conglomerate bedrock on Holmengrå.

The Haugsdal delta

Haugsdalen

13.12.2018 - 09:02

Early in the 1900s there were much larger salt water deltas in Hordaland. But, essentially all of the larger river deltas got filled in and regulated for use in industry during the last century. Now, there is only Haugsdals delta left.

Etne and the Etne delta around 1900.

Etnedeltaet

18.06.2018 - 20:23

During the latter half of the 1900s the big natural river deltas on Westland disappeared. Until the 1980s there was still a small, but significant remnant of the original river delta from the Etneelva river, but today most of this, too, is industrial land.

Lønaøyane

Lønaøyane

31.03.2018 - 19:10

The Strandaelvi river is forever protected from the development of hydropower. The Lønaøyane islands – which comprise the delta furthest north in Lake Lønavatnet - are a part of this water system. In 1995 the level of protection for the Lønaøyne islands was strengthened to that of a nature preserve because of the rich birdlife in this wetland.

From Skjervheim toward Lake Myrkdalsvatnet.

Myrkdalsdeltaet

19.06.2018 - 18:01

Mykdal delta had an unusually diverse bird life, right up until 1987. The Myrkdal delta should have been protected, and the plans were prepared. Despite the area's high elevation at 227 m a.s.l., it had a wide variety of bird species compared with other fresh water wetlands in inner Hordaland. Several of the bird species were also unusual for the region. The delta had for example a permanent nesting colony of Eurasian Wigeon, believed to be the only one of its kind in the municipality.

Rekvesøyane

Rekvesøyane

29.03.2018 - 11:53

The sediment that was deposited from the river Dyrvo has created the fan-shaped delta Rekvesøyane. The bit of land farthest out toward the water gets periodically flooded, especially during snow melt and after periods of much rain.

Geologist William Helland-Hansen examining a quartz conglomerate in the Ulven Syncline on one of the hills by the north west end of Lake Ulvenvatnet.

Ulven

03.01.2019 - 15:16

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.

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