The coastline of eastern Greenland, with its many fjords. At the bottom is the longest fjord in the world,
Scoresby Sund.
Geologically, a
fjord ( or ) is a long, narrow
inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved by
glacial activity.
Formation
Fjords are formed when a glacier cuts a v-shaped
valley by
abrasion of the surrounding
bedrock. Many such valleys were formed during the recent
ice age. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice load and eroded sediment is removed (also called
isostasy or glacial rebound). In some cases this rebound is faster than
sea level rise. Most fjords are deeper than the adjacent sea;
Sognefjord,
Norway, reaches as much as below
sea level. Fjords generally have a
sill or rise at their mouth caused by the previous glacier's
terminal moraine, in many cases causing extreme currents and large saltwater rapids (see
skookumchuck).
Saltstraumen in Norway is often described as the worlds strongest
tidal current. These characteristics distinguish fjords from
rias (e.g. the
Bay of Kotor), which are drowned valleys flooded by the rising sea.
Fjord features and variations
Coral reefs
As late as 2000, some of the world's largest
coral reefs were discovered along the bottoms of the Norwegian fjords. These reefs were found in fjords from the north of Norway to the south. The marine life on the reefs is believed to be one of the most important reasons why the Norwegian coastline is such a generous fishing ground. Since this discovery is fairly new, little research has been done. The reefs are host to thousands of lifeforms such as
plankton,
coral,
anemones, fish, several species of shark, and many more. Most are specially adapted to life under the greater pressure of the
water column above it, and the total darkness of the deep sea.
New Zealand's fjords are also host to deep sea corals, but a surface layer of dark fresh water allows these corals to grow in much shallower water than usual. An underwater observatory in
Milford Sound allows tourists to view them without diving.
Skerries
In some places near the seaward margins of areas with fjords, the ice-scoured channels are so numerous and varied in direction that the rocky coast is divided into thousands of island blocks, some large and mountainous while others are merely rocky points or rock
reefs, menacing navigation. These are called
skerries. The term skerry is derived from the
Old Norse sker, which means a rock in the sea.
Skerries are most commonly formed at the outlet of fjords where submerged glacially formed valleys perpendicular to the coast join with other cross valleys in a complex array. The island fringe of Norway is such a group of skerries (called a
skjærgård); many of the cross fjords are so arranged that they parallel the coast and provide a protected channel behind an almost unbroken succession of mountainous islands and skerries. By this channel one can travel through a protected passage almost the entire route from
Stavanger to
North Cape, Norway. The
Blindleia is a skerry-protected waterway that starts near
Kristiansand in southern Norway, and continues past
Lillesand. The
Swedish coast along
Bohuslän is likewise skerry guarded. The
Inside Passage provides a similar route from
Seattle,
Washington and
Vancouver,
British Columbia to
Skagway,
Alaska. Yet another such skerry protected passage extends from the
Straits of Magellan north for .
False fjords
The differences in usage between the
English and the
Scandinavian languages have contributed to confusion in the use of the term fjord. Bodies of water which are clearly fjords in Scandinavian languages are not considered fjords in English; similarly bodies of water which would clearly not be fjords in the Scandinavian sense have been named or suggested to be fjords. Examples of this confused usage follow.
The
Bay of Kotor in
Montenegro has been suggested by some to be a fjord, but is in fact a drowned river canyon or ria. Similarly the
Lim bay in
Istria,
Croatia, is sometimes called "Lim fjord" although it is not actually a fjord carved by glacial erosion but instead a ria dug by the river Pazinčica. The
Croats call it
Limski kanal which does not transliterate precisely to the English equivalent either.
Limfjord in the north of
Denmark is a fjord in the Scandinavian sense, but is not a fjord in the English sense. In English it would be called a
channel, since it separates the
North Jutlandic Island (Vendsyssel-Thy) from the rest of
Jutland.
While the long fjord-like bays of the
New England coast are sometimes referred to as "fiards", the only glacially-formed fjord-like feature in New England is
Somes Sound in
Maine.
The fjords in
Finnmark (Norway), which are fjords in the
Scandinavian sense of the term, are considered by some to be false fjords. Although glacially formed, most Finnmark fjords lack the classic hallmark steep-sided valleys of the more southerly Norwegian fjords since the glacial pack was deep enough to cover even the high grounds when they were formed.
In
Acapulco,
Mexico, the
calanques—narrow, rocky inlets—on the western side of the city, where the famous cliff-divers perform daily, are described in the city's tourist literature as being fjords.
Freshwater fjords
Some Norwegian freshwater lakes which have formed in long glacially carved valleys with terminal
moraines blocking the outlet follow the Norwegian naming convention; they are named fjords. Outside of Norway, the three western arms of
New Zealand's
Lake Te Anau are named North Fiord, Middle Fiord and South Fiord. Another freshwater "fjord" in a larger lake is Baie Fine, located on the northeastern coast of
Georgian Bay of
Lake Huron in
Ontario.
Western Brook Pond, in
Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park, is also often described as a fjord, but is actually a freshwater lake cut off from the sea, so is not a fjord in the English sense of the term. Such lakes are sometimes called "fjord lakes".
Okanagan Lake was the first North American lake to be so described, in 1962. The bedrock there has been eroded up to
below sea level, which is below the surrounding regional topography. Fjord lakes are common on the inland lea of the
Coast Mountains and
Cascade Range; notable ones include
Lake Chelan,
Seton Lake,
Chilko Lake, and
Atlin Lake.
Kootenay Lake,
Slocan Lake and others in the basin of the
Columbia River are also fjord-like in nature, and created by glaciation in the same way. Along the
British Columbia Coast, a notable fjord-lake is
Owikeno Lake, which is a freshwater extension of
Rivers Inlet. Another area notable for fjord lakes is northern
Italy and southern
Switzerland -
Lake Como and its neighbours.
Etymology
Important fjords and lakes in Norway. Note: The part of the map showing the northern fjords has a considerably smaller scale.
With
Indo European origin (
*prtús from
*por- or
*per) in the
verb fara (travelling/ferrying), the Norse
noun substantive
fjǫrðr means a "
lake-like"
waterbody used for passage and ferrying.
The Scandinavian
fjord,
Proto-Scandinavian *
ferþuz, is the origin for similar
European words:
Icelandic fjörður,
Swedish fjärd (for Baltic waterbodies),
Scottish firth. The Danish even use
fjord for shallow lagoons as well as minor bodies of water cut into land. The Germans call the narrow long bays of
Schleswig-Holstein Förde but the Norwegian bays
Fjord. Perhaps the word is also related to English
ford (which is in
German Furt),
Greek poros,
Latin portus and the
Dutch word
voorde (for
mudflat, cf. Vilvoorde).
As a
loanword from
Norwegian, it is one of the few words in the English language to start with the
digraph fj.
Scandinavian usage
Use of the word fjord (including the eastern Scandinavian form
fjärd) is more general in the Scandinavian languages than in English. In Scandinavia,
fjord is used for a narrow inlet of the sea in Norway, Denmark and western Sweden, but this is not its only application. In Norway, the usage is closest to the Old Norse, with fjord used for both a firth and for a long, narrow inlet. In eastern Norway, the term is also applied to long narrow freshwater lakes (for instance
Mjøsa [commonly referred to as
fjorden],
Randsfjorden and
Tyrifjorden) and sometimes even to rivers (in local usage, for instance in
Flå in
Hallingdal, the
Hallingdal river is referred to as
fjorden). In east Sweden, the name
fjärd is used in a synonymous manner for bays,
bights and narrow inlets on the Swedish
Baltic Sea coast, and in most Swedish lakes. This latter term is also used for bodies of water off the coast of Finland where
Finland Swedish is spoken. In Danish, the word may even apply to shallow
lagoons. In modern Icelandic,
fjörður is still used with the broader meaning of firth or inlet. In the
Finnish language, a word
vuono is used although there is only one fjord in Finland.
The German use of the word
Förde for long narrow bays on their Baltic Sea coastline, indicates a common
Germanic origin of the word. The landscape consists mainly of moraine heaps. The "Förden" and some "fjords" on the east side of Denmark are also of glacial origin. But while the glaciers digging "real" fjords moved from the mountains to the sea, in Denmark and Germany they were tongues of a huge glacier covering the bassin of which is now the Baltic Sea. See
Förden and East Jutland Fjorde.
Whereas fjordnames mostly describe bays (though not always geological fjords),
straits in the same regions typically are named
Sund, in Scandinavian languages as well as in German. The word is related to "to sunder" in the meaning of "to separate". So the use of
Sound to name fjords in North America and New Zealand differs from the European meaning of that word.
The name of
Wexford in
Ireland is originally derived from
Veisafjǫrðr ("inlet of the mud flats") in Old Norse, as used by the
Viking settlers — though the place does not have a fjord in the more narrow modern meaning.
Locations
The principal mountainous regions where fjords have formed are in the higher
middle latitudes and the high latitudes reaching to 80°N (Svalbard, Greenland), where, during the glacial period, many valley glaciers descended to the then-lower sea level. The fjords develop best in mountain ranges against which the prevailing
westerly marine winds are
orographically lifted over the mountainous regions, resulting in abundant snowfall to feed the glaciers. Hence coasts having the most pronounced fjords include the west coast of Europe, the west coast of North America from
Puget Sound to Alaska, the west coast of New Zealand, and the west coast of
South America and to south-western
Tasmania. In Tasmania there are many small Fjords with mountains surrounding reaching 1000 m in southern districts, though these are not glaciated they are often covered in snow, sometimes in summer. These fjords have formed by past glaciers ripping through to the sea.
Principal glaciated regions
thumb|right|boreal zone/" class="wiki">Tysfjord in Norway north of the Arctic Circle is located in the
boreal zone
thumb|right|Magdalenafjord in the high arctic archipelago Svalbard- West coast of New Zealand
- Northwest Coast of North America
- West coast of South America
Other glaciated regions
Other regions have fjords, but many of these are less pronounced due to more limited exposure to westerly winds and less pronounced relief. Areas include:
- * the Gullmaren on the west coast of Sweden
- ** Ilulissat Ice fjord, the most productive ice fjord in the world.
Extreme fjords
The longest fjords in the world are:
Deep fjords include:
- Sognefjord in Norway - (the mountains then rise to up to )
Even deeper is the
Vanderford Valley (), carved by Antarctica's
Vanderford Glacier. This undersea valley lies offshore, however, and so is not a fjord.
