The geology of Norway

We tend to take for granted that the landscape around us has always been as it is.  However, when we look at the earth from a geological time frame perspective, we see dramatic changes. The beautiful, Norwegian fjord landscape: here today, gone tomorrow.

The Making of Norway

NGU's geologists map Norway and manage geological information about how this country came to be.   They research on the interaction between the innermost driving, uplifting forces that build the land and those that are working to tear and break it down.

The Earth's crust is a thin, hard shell which floats on Earth's mantle as plates. Earthquakes occur in their cracks.  New rock and land is formed  as magma, flows out of volcanoes.  Large continental plates smash together, resulting in folds that become our largest mountains.

Everything will be torn down

Climate plays a role in breaking things down from the outside.  Wind, water and ice erodes and break down both the mountains and the land, and transports the material into the ocean.   All that is currently being formed will be torn down again. The mountains standing today in Norway are the remains of ancient mountain ranges, which have been eroded down to sea level and later lifted.