Geology

Geological park featuring our national rock, all the county rocks and the communerocks of Sogn og Fjordane.

Sogn og Fjordane; Eclogite.

In the westernmost part of Norway the crust was pressed more than 80 km down into the mantle and some of the rocks were transformed into eclogite, one of the densest rock types on Earth.

STRYN: AUGEN GNEISS from Oldedalen is an altered basement rock about 1600 million years old.The groundmass is pyroxene and biotite mica, the light coloured “eyes” consist of two types of feldspar.

Rocks are divided into 3 principal types:

• Igneous
• Sedimentary
• Metamorphic
• Igneous rocks form by the cooling and crystallisation of natural melts (magma).

They can be further subdivided into:

• Intrusives that crystallised slowly, deep beneath the surface of the Earth.
• Hypabyssal rocks that crystallised in small, shallow intrusions of magma such as dykes and sills
• Volcanic rocks (lava) that cooled quickly at the surface.
• Sedimentary rocks formed by the lithification of layers of sediment deposited on land or under water.
• Metamorphic rocks form by the transformation and recrystallisation of older igneous or metamorphic rocks as a consequence of deformation or elevated temperatures and pressures.