A pie­ce of Earth’s history

A jour­ney in time through 1700 mil­li­on years

Geo­lo­gy is histo­ry. Eart­h’s histo­ry. By visi­ting geo­lo­gi­cal sites in the tab­le mountain lands­cape, you can tra­vel in time – seve­ral mil­li­on years. Each pla­ce is a pie­ce of the puzz­le, which toget­her tells a sto­ry that begins 1700 mil­li­on years ago. At that time, it was a mountain range high like the Andes here! The mountain range was slowly ero­ded down to become the flat bed­rock sur­fa­ce we see today – the pene­plain. Eart­h’s con­ti­nents are con­stant­ly moving around the glo­be. 500 mil­li­on years ago, Väst­gö­tas­lät­ten laid south of the equa­tor. The rocks of the mountains tell us how sedi­ment and ani­mal life fell to the bot­tom of the shal­low oce­an and beca­me rock and fossil.

A few hund­red mil­li­on years later, mag­ma from the Eart­h’s inte­ri­or rose as intru­sions into the sedi­ments – and beca­me what we today see as the rock dolo­ri­te, the hood of the tab­le mountains. Almost up to the pre­sent day the cli­ma­te was cold, and a mile of ice cove­red our tab­le mountains. When the ice later star­ted to melt, mel­t­wa­ter gus­hed out from an ice lake in a huge flood, just north of Bil­ling­en. The puzz­le pie­ces are out the­re, in the lands­cape. Do you want to disco­ver them and join the tra­vel through time?

Sites to visit – A pie­ce of Eart­h’s history