Book contents
Terrain relief
from Components of natural environment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
Summary
The principal landform types in western Sørkapp Land are coastal lowlands, mountains and mountain valleys (Fig. 3).
Coastal lowlands constitute more than half of the study area and were formed as a shallow sea bed offshore during the Pleistocene and the Holocene, and uplifted due to isostatic movements afterwards.
There are two coastal lowlands along Hornsund Fjord, which are isolated from other lowlands by the slopes of the Tsjebysjovfjellet and Wurmbrandegga massifs running down to the sea in the northeastern part of the study area. The narrow (up to 250 m wide) and short (ca. 1.5 km long) lowland with the Stonehengesteinane group of rocks lies at the foot of the northern wall of Tsjebysjovfjellet called Rasstupet. The second lowland, Gåshamnøyra, consists of the virtually flat outlet of a wide valley covered by extensive (2 km x 2 km) extramarginal sandur formed by proglacial waters of Gåsbreen glacier.
The Kulmstranda lowland (1.5–2.0 km wide), built of resistant Early Carboniferous sandstones, adjoins from the south of the outlet of Hornsund Fjord. The lowland is formed of extensive rock terraces, which are covered by a thin layer of quartzitic marine pebbles or devoid of them in many places. The lowland's higher part forms a ridge reaching 123 m. Lisbetdalen valley is located behind this ridge.
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- Transformation of the Natural Environment in Western Sorkapp Land (Spitsbergen) since the 1980s , pp. 33 - 38Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2011