Grasdalen

Holmengrå

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.

Bordalsgjelet

Deep down between the stone polished phyllite bedrock in Bordalsgjelet canyon, there is a cascading river. In close cooperation with hard polishing stones, the water has carved into the bedrock for thousands of years - and is still doing so today.

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.

Sandviksfjellet

On Sandviksfjellet there are old boulders that have been made into mountains. The stones have been stretched out or squeezed together between huge slabs of rock, during slow, but powerfulprocesses of transport. This conglomerate shows, in quite a special way, the enormous powers that were active during the collision between Norway and Greenland over 400 million years ago.

Buadalsbrotet

Finnås

At Flintaneset by Finnåsvika, in the centre of the municipality, we find the most beautiful and best preserved igneous rocks in western Norway. We must go to Hawaii or Island to find as fine structures as at Bømlo.

Mosnes

The permanently-protected Mosneselva River, with its meltwater from Folgefonna, runs out into Åkra Fjord by the roadless and uninhabited Mosnes. Those who once lived here were forced to surrender to the ravages of Nature. In the autumn of 1962 there was a flood so great that the people were driven from their farms.