Fjords... Creative Erosion

Fjord is a long narrow inlet of water into land from an ocean which is surrounded by steep mountains on either side. It is generally formed by galactic erosion of mountains into the sea. They are mainly observed in the Polar Regions as these are the places on earth which have glaciers at the lowest altitudes.

They are commonly observed in Norway, Greenland, Iceland and New Zealand.

These are one of the most scenic natural forms as they provide a perfect blend of natural formation and erosion.

As generally observed, a river erodes its bed and thus the depth of the river continuously increases. On similar lines, a glacier which is a slow moving mass of ice erodes its base (which is a mountain in the case of a fjord) leading to the glacier bed getting deeper. After centuries of erosion, this bed becomes so deep that it ends up reaching the sea level and in some cases even lower than that thus giving an impression that the mountain which got eroded never existed. Hence a fjord is formed which has mountains at the edges and the thin slit of ocean or sea in between.

Every year, these fjords attract millions of tourists, researchers, photographers as well as movie directors. It is hardly a surprise that most of the countries that have these fjords end up marketing them heavily as a tourist destination considering their natural beauty as well as the varied flora and fauna found in the region. On many occasions, the depth of these fjords end up being greater than the surrounding sea and oceans which give a lot of clues about the mysteries of the geographical formation of the area. 

Some of the most famous fjords in the world are as follows:

• Hardanger fjord in Norway
• Fjordland in New Zealand
• Geiranger fjord
• Killary Harbour in Ireland
• Scoresby sund in Greenland
• Magdalena fjord.

Norway has few of the most beautiful fjords in the world. New Zealand’s Milford sound is also a very famous tourist attraction. It is 300 km away from Queenstown and is highly inaccessible for the major part of the year still it generally ends up figuring at the top of the most beautiful places to visit in the world.