Origin of Fjords

Introduction

Fjords are basically estuaries, or valleys drowned by the sea. Similar features with irregular shape and without a U-shaped profile are called a "fjärd" in Sweden. A fjord may be called a "loch", "lough" in Scotland or Ireland. Valleys resembling fjords that are not submerged are common in mountain areas. The usual explanation is that they were eroded by glacial scour. However, many fjords have no glacier. Flint wrote [Flint, 1971, p. 131]:

Many of the strongly glaciated valleys of high-standing coasts underlain by resistant rocks in high latitudes are partly submerged, and constitute fiords. A fiord is a segment of a glaciated trough partly filled by an arm of the sea. It differs from other strongly glaciated valleys only in the fact of submergence. The floors of many though not all fiords contain basins, some of which are both deep and long. As a result many fiords are shallower at their mouths than at some distance inland. Most such basins are believed to be eroded in bedrock, and some are known to be so.

The plausibility of ice erosion is in question. A new approach to the question of fjord origin is possible with the disintegration theory of the drift.

References

Flint, R.F., 1971. Glacial and Quaternary Geology. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Related Sites

Fjords - Government of Canada site
For some pictures of fjords, and a conventional interpretation, see: fjords...a web tutorial