20 Sept 2026
Cliffs, Waterfalls, and Hidden Depths – Geology of the Lysefjord, Norway
As mentioned in my post about Iceland, we crossed the northern Atlantic ahead of a nasty storm (there was a fair bit of wind nevertheless, but I don't have problems with a heavy swell) and stopped at Stavanger to make up for the lost half day. I had been to Stavanger last year, so I looked for something interesting to do in the surroundings and found a 3½ hour boat tour to the Lysefjord which is definitely one of the most scenic fjords in a land not short of scenic fjords.
Lysefjord in southern Norway
The Lysefjord east of Stavanger is about 42 km long and rather narrow (only 100 metres in its narrowest, 1.75 km at the widest section), and up to 456 metres deep. Its walls are really steep, almost vertical in parts, made of granite which gives them a lighter colour that will reflect the on the water on a sunny day – hence the name: Fjord of Light – though the rainy weather dimmed the colours. The tour doesn't cover the entire length of the fjord, but passes some of its most interesting sights, the boat going very close to the walls at the highlight points.
Lysefjord Bridge
The 639 metres long suspension bridge marks the entrance to the fjord proper and connects Strand municipality with Sandnes municipality. It was built in 1995-1997. The supporting pillars are 102 metres tall while the bridge runs 50 metres above sea level to allow the ferry to Lysebotn, the village at the end of the fjord, to pass under it.
At the entrance to the Lysefjord
There were rain showers and an overast sky, but photographing was less of a problem than on the last day in Iceland, since part of the open deck on the boat had a roof, so one could snap a few pics, get back under shelter, and peek out again for the next nice motive – which was never far away. I'm afraid this post is a piece of picture spam with some geology thrown in. *grin*
Cliffs at the Lysefjord
Norway sits on an ancient and stable part of the earth's crust, the Baltic Craton or Baltic Shield that underlies Fennoscandia, the northern part of the Baltic Sea and northwestern Russia. It is composed of Archean granites, gneisses and greenstones that were formed by the heat and pressure from early continental collisions 4,031-2,500 million years ago. They were later overlaid by various strata of sedimentary rocks (like sandstone, limestone etc.)
Another rock formation
Granite is an ingneous (magmatic) rock composed of mostly quartz and feldspar which forms from magma and slowly solidifies underground (other than basalt which solidifies as result of volcanic activity). Gneis is a metamorphic rock which develops from sedimentary or igneous rocks under high temperatures and pressure. The third candidate is greenstone which metamorphs from basalt and amphibolites that can be found in submerged oceanic crusts.
Upper part of some cliffs
Sometimes, geological processes, like plate tectonics, will bring those bedrocks up to the top, superimposing the sedimentary rocks, and make the various older layers visible, esp. at the fringes of the craton.
Lower part of some cliffs
One of those processes was the Caledonian Orogeny. Around 440-350 million years ago (Silurian to Devonian period), the continental plates of Baltica and Laurentia, and the microcontinent Avalonia collided, closing the Iapetus Ocean. The process formed a chain of high mountains – originally as high as the Himalaya, but erosion had plenty of time to do its job – from eastern Greenland and Svalbard to the Norwegian coast, the Scottish Highlands and to the Ardennes in France.
Rocks with a little waterfall
When two continents that had been separated by an ocean drift towards each other again, the oceanic crust – which is thinner (~6 km) and denser, consisting of basalt and gabbro – will be submerged under one of the continents, often causing a chain of volcanoes to erupt when the crust material is melted in the process. Continental crust is thicker (~ 45 km) but buoyant, composed of granite and gneis, thus those layers are pushed on top and eventually will form mountain ranges where the hoizontal geological strata are brought into a slanted or an almost vertical position.
View of the fjord at its wider part
Some 350 million years of erosion reduced the Himalaya-sized mountain range to almost the present level. Granite is a hard rock that erodes slowly, but the tectonic fault lines and the layers of sedimental rocks pushed up between those during the orogeny reacted to wind and especially water more easily, forming river valleys.
Granite and greenstone
The final step towards the present landscape was caused by the glaciers of the Ice Ages. The various periods when ice sheets and glaciers covered the land, from 2.6 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago when the ice finally retreated for good, led to the formation of the Norwegian fjords. The glaciers deepened the fault lines and river valleys beyond what water could have achieved.
Granite with fissure
A layer of kilometres thick ice can put up much stronger pressure force, and glaciers take with them debris and even boulders when they slowly move, which add to the erosive power. That way, rivers and clefts where formed into U-shaped, deep valleys that can vary from somewhat gentler slopes – esp. when the trough valley occurs on the bottom of a V-shaped vale, and only that lower part later fills with water – to veritable canyons like the Lysefjord. Fjords also tend to run more straightly than rivers because the glaciers have more force to push ahead with little regard to the softest sediments, while rivers shaped by water only tend to meander.
The righthand side of the fjord which is less steep (see below)
About 11,700 years ago the glaciers began to recede. At their front ends, terminal moraines and tillites formed (tillite is a sedimentary rock as result of the compaction of glacial tills which are a mix of clay, sand, pebbles and boulders the melting glaciers left behind). Most fjords are therefore threshold fjords that are not very deep at their mouth (11 metres in case of the Lysefjord) but with a deep drop in the fjord itself (here ~ 100 - 450 metres).
Hengjanefossen waterfall (see also below)
Due to its shape, the temperature and salinity of the fjord vary according to depth. There are basically two layers: The top which is fed by freshwater (rain and waterfalls) and therefore lower in salinity, which flows seaward; and the bottom layer consisting of colder and denser seawater from the North Sea with higher salinity which moves inland. The boundary zone or pyclonocline is a layer of but a few metres where the waters mix. The various conditions also hold different amounts of nutrients (more in the bottom) and influence the species living in the fjord.
Preikestolen cliff
The most famous cliff at the Lysefjord is the Preikestolen, the Pulpit Rock. It is a flat topped stone standing 604 metres above the water. The glacier once reached the end of the cliff and its water froze in the crevices of the mountain, over time breaking off large, angular blocks which were carried away by the glacier (likely ending up in the tillite at the mouth of the fjord). Cracks continue to appear in the rocks, including one along the Pulpit Rock, but at present there is no danger of that one breaking off. It may do so in a faraway future, though.
Preikestolen in the mist
There is a hiking path up to the cliff from the other side, but even from the parking lot it is still a rather steep way covering a height difference of 300 metres. At some points, steps have been hewn into the rock by Nepalese sherpas, so that doesn't sound like an easy hike. My regular readers – if those still exist – know I don't like heights and would never have gone to the very edge of the platform (there is no rail) anyway, so the fjord tour was the better alternative.
Hengjanefossen waterfall
There also was a pretty waterfall, the Hengjanefossen. Water – as result of rain and snowmelt – from the highlands above the fjord collects in a catchment a bit beneath the rim. With more water coming in, that basin will overflow and the water cascades down about 100 metres directly into the fjord. The fall was quite strong when I visited, but it can be reduced to no more than a runnel when there is a period with little precipitation.
Lower part of the waterfall
The boat gets close enough that you can feel the spray, esp. on a windy day. I didn't use a zoom for those photos.
Since the cliff is so steep, no debris will accumulate at the foot of the waterfall which hits the water directly; you can see the foam and whorls.
Hengjanefossen
Archaeological finds show that the fjord has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The main sources of the people were hunting and fishing, later also animal husbandry. The right side of the fjord is somewhat less steep and sunnier than the cliffs to the left, since it is facing south. Some agriculture is possible there, and oaks grow which could be used for forest pasture, and various conifers. Mountain goats can even manage on the cliffs; there is a small herd today.
Mountain Goat
The Vikings also settled in the fjord, and until the Black Death in 1350, it was more densely populated than today. At the end of the fjord a village remains: Lysebotn, populated mostly by the workers of the nearby hydroelectric power station. It can only be reached by ferry via the fjord and a serpentine road from above (covering a height difference of 900 metres) that is only open in summer. There are also summer houses spread along the fjord.
They bay leading to Fantahålå Cave
But not only farmers and fishermen settled in the fjord, it was at times also the refuge of tax shirkers, miscreants and outlaws. There is a cave, Fantahålå (Vagabond Cave) hidden in the cliffs. You can only see it – and not very well – if you steer into the miniature bay and then look to the left, behind trees is the entrance to a cave.
Fantahålå Cave
Once, the shire reeve from Stavanger went after a group of those vagabonds and rowed into the bay, sure that this time, he got the lot. But they had been warned, climbed up the impossibly steep cliff and began to throw rocks at the boat. The reeve had no other option but to return if he and his people didn't want to take a swim in the very cold fjord.
On the way back to Stavanger
On the way back to Stavanger, the sun came out and suddenly the water was very blue. I hope you had some fun following me into the Lysefjord and its geology and history.
Literature
Jürgen Ehlers: Das Eiszeitalter, Heidelberg 2011
Graham Park: The Making of Europe – A Geological History, Edinbrugh 2014
Peter Rothe: Gesteine. Entstehung – Zerstörung – Umbildung, Darmstadt 2010 (3rd edition)
As mentioned in my post about Iceland, we crossed the northern Atlantic ahead of a nasty storm (there was a fair bit of wind nevertheless, but I don't have problems with a heavy swell) and stopped at Stavanger to make up for the lost half day. I had been to Stavanger last year, so I looked for something interesting to do in the surroundings and found a 3½ hour boat tour to the Lysefjord which is definitely one of the most scenic fjords in a land not short of scenic fjords.
The Lysefjord east of Stavanger is about 42 km long and rather narrow (only 100 metres in its narrowest, 1.75 km at the widest section), and up to 456 metres deep. Its walls are really steep, almost vertical in parts, made of granite which gives them a lighter colour that will reflect the on the water on a sunny day – hence the name: Fjord of Light – though the rainy weather dimmed the colours. The tour doesn't cover the entire length of the fjord, but passes some of its most interesting sights, the boat going very close to the walls at the highlight points.
The 639 metres long suspension bridge marks the entrance to the fjord proper and connects Strand municipality with Sandnes municipality. It was built in 1995-1997. The supporting pillars are 102 metres tall while the bridge runs 50 metres above sea level to allow the ferry to Lysebotn, the village at the end of the fjord, to pass under it.
There were rain showers and an overast sky, but photographing was less of a problem than on the last day in Iceland, since part of the open deck on the boat had a roof, so one could snap a few pics, get back under shelter, and peek out again for the next nice motive – which was never far away. I'm afraid this post is a piece of picture spam with some geology thrown in. *grin*
Norway sits on an ancient and stable part of the earth's crust, the Baltic Craton or Baltic Shield that underlies Fennoscandia, the northern part of the Baltic Sea and northwestern Russia. It is composed of Archean granites, gneisses and greenstones that were formed by the heat and pressure from early continental collisions 4,031-2,500 million years ago. They were later overlaid by various strata of sedimentary rocks (like sandstone, limestone etc.)
Granite is an ingneous (magmatic) rock composed of mostly quartz and feldspar which forms from magma and slowly solidifies underground (other than basalt which solidifies as result of volcanic activity). Gneis is a metamorphic rock which develops from sedimentary or igneous rocks under high temperatures and pressure. The third candidate is greenstone which metamorphs from basalt and amphibolites that can be found in submerged oceanic crusts.
Sometimes, geological processes, like plate tectonics, will bring those bedrocks up to the top, superimposing the sedimentary rocks, and make the various older layers visible, esp. at the fringes of the craton.
One of those processes was the Caledonian Orogeny. Around 440-350 million years ago (Silurian to Devonian period), the continental plates of Baltica and Laurentia, and the microcontinent Avalonia collided, closing the Iapetus Ocean. The process formed a chain of high mountains – originally as high as the Himalaya, but erosion had plenty of time to do its job – from eastern Greenland and Svalbard to the Norwegian coast, the Scottish Highlands and to the Ardennes in France.
When two continents that had been separated by an ocean drift towards each other again, the oceanic crust – which is thinner (~6 km) and denser, consisting of basalt and gabbro – will be submerged under one of the continents, often causing a chain of volcanoes to erupt when the crust material is melted in the process. Continental crust is thicker (~ 45 km) but buoyant, composed of granite and gneis, thus those layers are pushed on top and eventually will form mountain ranges where the hoizontal geological strata are brought into a slanted or an almost vertical position.
Some 350 million years of erosion reduced the Himalaya-sized mountain range to almost the present level. Granite is a hard rock that erodes slowly, but the tectonic fault lines and the layers of sedimental rocks pushed up between those during the orogeny reacted to wind and especially water more easily, forming river valleys.
The final step towards the present landscape was caused by the glaciers of the Ice Ages. The various periods when ice sheets and glaciers covered the land, from 2.6 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago when the ice finally retreated for good, led to the formation of the Norwegian fjords. The glaciers deepened the fault lines and river valleys beyond what water could have achieved.
A layer of kilometres thick ice can put up much stronger pressure force, and glaciers take with them debris and even boulders when they slowly move, which add to the erosive power. That way, rivers and clefts where formed into U-shaped, deep valleys that can vary from somewhat gentler slopes – esp. when the trough valley occurs on the bottom of a V-shaped vale, and only that lower part later fills with water – to veritable canyons like the Lysefjord. Fjords also tend to run more straightly than rivers because the glaciers have more force to push ahead with little regard to the softest sediments, while rivers shaped by water only tend to meander.
About 11,700 years ago the glaciers began to recede. At their front ends, terminal moraines and tillites formed (tillite is a sedimentary rock as result of the compaction of glacial tills which are a mix of clay, sand, pebbles and boulders the melting glaciers left behind). Most fjords are therefore threshold fjords that are not very deep at their mouth (11 metres in case of the Lysefjord) but with a deep drop in the fjord itself (here ~ 100 - 450 metres).
Due to its shape, the temperature and salinity of the fjord vary according to depth. There are basically two layers: The top which is fed by freshwater (rain and waterfalls) and therefore lower in salinity, which flows seaward; and the bottom layer consisting of colder and denser seawater from the North Sea with higher salinity which moves inland. The boundary zone or pyclonocline is a layer of but a few metres where the waters mix. The various conditions also hold different amounts of nutrients (more in the bottom) and influence the species living in the fjord.
The most famous cliff at the Lysefjord is the Preikestolen, the Pulpit Rock. It is a flat topped stone standing 604 metres above the water. The glacier once reached the end of the cliff and its water froze in the crevices of the mountain, over time breaking off large, angular blocks which were carried away by the glacier (likely ending up in the tillite at the mouth of the fjord). Cracks continue to appear in the rocks, including one along the Pulpit Rock, but at present there is no danger of that one breaking off. It may do so in a faraway future, though.
There is a hiking path up to the cliff from the other side, but even from the parking lot it is still a rather steep way covering a height difference of 300 metres. At some points, steps have been hewn into the rock by Nepalese sherpas, so that doesn't sound like an easy hike. My regular readers – if those still exist – know I don't like heights and would never have gone to the very edge of the platform (there is no rail) anyway, so the fjord tour was the better alternative.
There also was a pretty waterfall, the Hengjanefossen. Water – as result of rain and snowmelt – from the highlands above the fjord collects in a catchment a bit beneath the rim. With more water coming in, that basin will overflow and the water cascades down about 100 metres directly into the fjord. The fall was quite strong when I visited, but it can be reduced to no more than a runnel when there is a period with little precipitation.
The boat gets close enough that you can feel the spray, esp. on a windy day. I didn't use a zoom for those photos.
Since the cliff is so steep, no debris will accumulate at the foot of the waterfall which hits the water directly; you can see the foam and whorls.
Archaeological finds show that the fjord has been inhabited since the Stone Age. The main sources of the people were hunting and fishing, later also animal husbandry. The right side of the fjord is somewhat less steep and sunnier than the cliffs to the left, since it is facing south. Some agriculture is possible there, and oaks grow which could be used for forest pasture, and various conifers. Mountain goats can even manage on the cliffs; there is a small herd today.
The Vikings also settled in the fjord, and until the Black Death in 1350, it was more densely populated than today. At the end of the fjord a village remains: Lysebotn, populated mostly by the workers of the nearby hydroelectric power station. It can only be reached by ferry via the fjord and a serpentine road from above (covering a height difference of 900 metres) that is only open in summer. There are also summer houses spread along the fjord.
But not only farmers and fishermen settled in the fjord, it was at times also the refuge of tax shirkers, miscreants and outlaws. There is a cave, Fantahålå (Vagabond Cave) hidden in the cliffs. You can only see it – and not very well – if you steer into the miniature bay and then look to the left, behind trees is the entrance to a cave.
Once, the shire reeve from Stavanger went after a group of those vagabonds and rowed into the bay, sure that this time, he got the lot. But they had been warned, climbed up the impossibly steep cliff and began to throw rocks at the boat. The reeve had no other option but to return if he and his people didn't want to take a swim in the very cold fjord.
On the way back to Stavanger, the sun came out and suddenly the water was very blue. I hope you had some fun following me into the Lysefjord and its geology and history.
Literature
Jürgen Ehlers: Das Eiszeitalter, Heidelberg 2011
Graham Park: The Making of Europe – A Geological History, Edinbrugh 2014
Peter Rothe: Gesteine. Entstehung – Zerstörung – Umbildung, Darmstadt 2010 (3rd edition)
