Posted on 05/20/2008 1:31:16 PM PDT by blam
Ice flow alone explains why fjords are cut so deep
20 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Fjords form when ice sheets gouge out a valley below sea level - but what makes the ice bite so deep?
A variety of factors was thought to be behind the rapid and deep incisions made as ice sheets flow down from the mountains. For example, if the sheet moves from a region where it is frozen to the bedrock to a region where the rock surface is slightly warmer, the ice might start to slide against the rock, eroding it more rapidly.
Mark Kessler of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues now reckon the process is simpler than that. The team built a computer model of a mountain range, with saddles representing valleys cut by rivers. This showed the ice sheets that covered the mountain range moving towards the sea via the saddles with the steepest slope. Erosion by the ice made these valleys deeper and steeper, encouraging even more ice to flow along that route, causing further erosion. This well-known positive feedback mechanism was enough to explain how fjords get so deep, Kessler says (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo201).
"They convincingly show that one single feedback loop explains the creation of one of the most spectacular landforms on the planet," says Johan Kleman of Stockholm University in Sweden.
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
They are that steep and deep because Slartibartfast thinks they are pretty.
Slartybartfast reference on the second post.
He is a true artist and expended tremendous effort to beautify the fijords.
So is a fjord with water in it the same thing as a Scottish loch? I’m not trying to be sarcastic but it does get confusing...I always thought “loch” was Scottish for “lake”, but they’re really, really deep! They look so peaceful when you see them, but I guess that may be where the term “still waters run deep” comes from. I thought a fjord was kind of the same thing...Damn, I dunno, I grew up around bayous and “cricks”!!:-)
No. A fjord is a "finger" inlet, and has an outlet to the sea. A loch is a landlocked lake.
Thank you! By the way, I’m a redhead even though I’ve no idea whether your screen name indicates that you are...
We have a submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. How does that work with a lake?
BTW, I was there on a sub in 1963...it does go to the sea.
* a lake or;
* a sea inlet, which may be also a firth, fjord, estuary or bay.
* Sea-inlet lochs are often called sea lochs.
So...they are the same! All I remember is driving through the Highlands and being breathtaken by the beauty and my boyfriend at the time telling me that the lochs were 1,800 ft. deep! I remember thinking that they looked like you could jump in and have a good time, but he told me that “your feet would have to sink nearly half a mile to make it to the bottom” Besides Nessie, :-), is there life in dem der lochs?
My dad's sister had red hair...I just found out because she dyed it her whole life. I had my dad's mother (my grandmother) DNA checked and she is Scotish with a DNA haplogroup U5a...same as Cheddar Man (Descendant of Stone Age skeleton found)
Cool! I was always under the impression that lakes were more or less landlocked. Guess a feller is never too old to learn. :o)
Actually, I’m named after a Scottish Folk Song by Robert Burns called “My Bonnie Annie Laurie”; so is your Aunt “Lucy”? (as in my heroine but not natural redhead Lucille Ball) Just teasing...I’m the only one of 5 with red hair and I used to dye it blonde and guess what? I made cheerleading and was nominated for Homecoming Court! After I graduated high school and tried to model I had to put it back to my natural color, even though it was spiked to heaven and teased to within an inch of its life...I had to be a “punk” ya know, okay, I’m fixin’ to vomit...what really makes me wanna vomit is that I’ve pretty much been a size “8” my whole life and I’m now considered “plus-size” in America. I can’t even begin to tell you how “effed” up that is! GINGERS RULE!!
The formal definition of “fjord” as being a coastal landform notwithstanding, some of Norway’s deeply incised inland lakes also are called fjords, such as Tyrefjord in Modum, on the shore of which my late immigrant father-in-law was born and raised; also nearby Ransfjord.
""An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals." It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters."
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