Why should a quar­ry be so interesting?

The fact is that Göte­ne quar­ry reve­als what the anci­ent rock looks like under­ne­ath the cove­ring of soil – the bed­rock that was ero­ded down to a flat sur­fa­ce and is known as the sub-Cam­bri­an pene­plain. This hap­pened around 600 mil­li­on years ago and laid the founda­tion for the plains lands­cape of Väst­gö­tas­lät­ten. The quar­ry shows that the rock sur­fa­ce bene­ath the soil cover is not enti­rely flat. The rock sur­fa­ce we see today bene­ath the soil cover is slight­ly undu­la­ting. In con­trast to the pene­plain near Slätt­ber­gen in Troll­hät­tan and near Nord­kro­ken, which con­si­st of gra­ni­te, the rock in this quar­ry is gneiss. Gneiss con­si­sts of lay­ers with dif­fe­rent com­po­si­tions, which results in a rock that is anyt­hing but homo­ge­ne­ous. The structu­re of the gneiss affects the rate of ero­sion and weat­he­ring, so the gneiss has weat­he­red at dif­fe­rent rates due to vari­a­tions in its mine­ral con­tent, and this is why it is not flat.

This is still a quar­ry in use, so you need a per­mit to get access and exa­mi­ne it closer!

Hit­ta Hit