Sip back and enjoy the start of this year’s meteorological autumn with the Fossil Coast Drinks Team as we begin our journey of discovery starting with some background research into Norwegian Fjords before we shortly venture out aboard the P&O Cruise Ship Iona and see for ourselves this wonderfully rugged landscape. The question we want to answer is, “why are there so many fjords on the western coastline of Norway?
Over the next week we shall set sail from Southampton crossing Doggerland the lost world of the North Sea on towards the historic destinations of Stavanger, Olden, Innvikfjorden, Ålesund and Haugesund before returning home.
The cruise ship Iona is an Excel-class cruise ship making it one of largest cruise ships in the world. Costing approximately £730 million the IONA was built by the historic shipbuilding company called Meyer Werft in Papenburg in Germany.
In September 2023, the Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry announced they will decarbonise the fjords by 2026 and greenhouse gas-emitting vessels will be prohibited from sailing into Norway’s spectacular World Heritage fjords.
The Iona was one of the first ever cruise ships to be powered by a zero emission liquefied natural gas or LNG drive system that does not burn fuel and so prevents the emission of harmful sulphur dioxide (SO2) an indirect greenhouse gas and polluting soot particles.
The IONA embarked on its maiden voyage from Southampton to join the P&O Cruise Ship fleet in 2021 joining the Arvia, Britannia, Ventura, Azura, Aurora and Arcadia. Accommodating up to 5,200 passengers and 2614 cabins, it has eight restaurants, four swimming pools and a glazed atrium with views over three decks and can travel at 17 knots. Apparently, there is a gin distillery onboard that will need to be investigated. The Fossil Coast Team shall be staying in a balcony cabin with a sea view – all aboard!
Why Norway? Why Not! Apart from the opportunity to visit the Norwegian Fjords the Kingdom of Norway is also one of happiest countries in the world according to The World Happiness Report. Our quest is to understand why Norway has over 1,000 fjords but first its important to understand the underlying geology because this story is more than simply about glaciation.
Norway or Nordweg means "northern way" and is one of the Nordic Countries that make up the large Scandinavia Peninsular along with neighbouring Sweden, Denmark and Finland. As the fifth largest country in Europe it is estimated that approximately 50% of Norway is made up of exposed bedrock and less than 1% of the land has been populated since the retreat of the last ice age.
The coastline of Norway (excluding fjords) measures over 2,650 Km but with the addition of over 50,000 islands and fjords the coastline increases to well over 55,000 Km. Norway has the world’s second longest coastline and the fjords are the country’s biggest tourist attraction.
The relatively oxygen-rich deep waters of the fjords is home to a rich biodiversity of species including large cold-water coral reefs and the fjords act as routes for migrating wild salmon and sea trout.
What is a fjord? A fjord is a deep, narrow, and elongated body of water that has been formed by glaciers that carved deep valleys into the land and then melted. The opening towards the sea is often shallow and is called the mouth of the fjord. The fjord's inner part is called the sea bottom.
If the inlet is wider than it is long, it is not defined as a fjord but a bay or cove. Fjords are not exclusive to Norway and are found in other destinations around the world near to polar regions such as Chile, New Zealand, Canada, Greenland, and Alaska.
The term “fjord” is an old Norse word dating back to the Vikings and is derived from “fjörðr” meaning a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes and “fjǫrthr” meaning “to travel across” and whose etymology also interestingly is the origin for the English words of ‘fare’ and ‘ferry’.
Norway is part of the Fennoscandian or Baltic Shield dating back between 1.5 – 3.5 billion years. The Baltic Shield has been influenced by a number of mountain building of orogenic events over this period. These events have all played their part in shaping the landscape of the Nordic Countries and the north-western part of the Russian Federation.
The main type of rock found in Norway is primarily granite and gneiss and they are among the Earth’s oldest hard crystalline metamorphic and igneous rocks. It is these rocks that form Norway’s many mountains making up the Scandes described as Norway's backbone including the Dovre and Lang Mountain ranges. The latter includes the Jotunheim Mountains and is the location for Mount Galdhøpiggen Norway's tallest mountain at 2,469 meters, and Glittertind, the second tallest at 2,457 meters.
Norway's landscape today was influenced by the Caledonian orogeny a major mountain-building event lasting about 150 million years from the Late Cambrian into the mid Devonian. This event resulted in the closure of the Iapetus Ocean as the continents Laurentia and Baltica and the Avalonia microcontinent collided creating the massive mountain ranges of Norway.
Fast forwarding to the Quaternary Period spanning the past 2.6 million years and the most recent geological time period. Norway experienced extraordinary changes in its climate including cycles of glacial growth and inter-glacial retreat. It was this repeated advance and retreat of glaciers that carved out deep fjords, U-shaped valleys, and left behind glacial features that now contribute to Norway's iconic scenery.
At this point it should be mentioned, given the route we are taking to Norway by sea, is that during the Quaternary Period and up and until approximately 18,000 years ago much of Britain was also covered by ice. At the time both Britain to continental Europe were linked by a low-lying land area covering over 46,620 square kilometres now known as "Doggerland".
Named by University of Exeter archaeologist Bryony Coles in the 1990s after the Dogger Bank that in turn was named after the 17th century “Dogger” fishing boats that sailed there - you may have also heard of the term used by the Met Office Shipping Forecast. This area was once settled by Mesolithic communities of hunter-gatherers and the local temperate climate and grassland ecosystem sustained mammoth, aurochs and red deer.
But around 8,200 years ago this fertile area of rivers, lagoons, wetlands and marshes is believed to have been flooded by a catastrophic wave generated by a sub-sea landslide off the coast of Norway. This was also a time when the global climate continued to warm and sea levels rose. Today this area is submerged by the North Sea.
So let us begin our journey to Norway and explore how erosion by glaciation over millions of years has worn down the legacy of the Caledonian orogeny to create the dramatic fjords, steep cliffs, and complex geological structures that now define Norway's landscape.
Next stop Stavanger...