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Strandflat

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Strandflat

Strandflat (Norwegian: strandflate) is a landform typical of the Norwegian coast consisting of a flattish erosion surface on the coast and near-coast seabed. In Norway, strandflats provide room for settlements and agriculture, constituting important cultural landscapes. The shallow and protected waters of strandflats are valued fishing grounds that provide sustenance to traditional fishing settlements. Outside Norway proper, strandflats can be found in other high-latitude areas, such as Antarctica, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Far North, Greenland, Svalbard, Sweden, and Scotland.

The strandflats are usually bounded on the landward side by a sharp break in slope, leading to mountainous terrain or high plateaux. On the seaward side, strandflats end at submarine slopes. The bedrock surface of strandflats is uneven and tilts gently towards the sea.

The concept of a strandflat was introduced in 1894 by Norwegian geologist Hans Reusch.

Strandflats are not fully flat and may display some local relief, meaning that it is usually not possible to assign them a precise elevation above sea level. The Norwegian strandflats may go from 70–60 metres (230–200 ft) above sea level to 40–30 metres (131–98 ft) below sea level. The undulations in the strandflat relief may result in an irregular coastline with skerries, small embayments, and peninsulas.

The width of the strandflat varies from 1–50 kilometres (0.62–31.07 mi) and occasionally reaching up to 80 kilometres (50 mi) in width. From land to sea the strandflat can be subdivided into the following zones: the supramarine zone, the skjærgård (skerry archipelago), and the submarine zone. Residual mountains surrounded by the strandflat are called rauks.

On the landward side, the strandflat often terminates abruptly with the beginning of a steep slope that separates it from higher or more uneven terrain. In some locations this sharp boundary is lacking and the landward end of strandflat is diffuse. On the seaward side, the strandflat continues underwater down to depths of 30 to 60 metres (98 to 197 ft), where a steep submarine slope separates it from older low relief paleic surfaces. These paleic surfaces are known as bankflat, and make up much of the continental shelf. At some locations, the landward end of the strandflat or the region slightly above contains relict sea caves partly filled with sediments that predate the last glacial period. These caves lie near the post-glacial marine limit or above it.

Overall, strandflats in Nordland county are larger and flatter than those of Western Norway. Also in Nordland, many strandflats are found next to active seismic faults.

Despite being together with fjords the most studied coastal landform in Norway, as of 2013 there is no consensus as to the origin of strandflats. An analysis of the literature shows that during the course of the 20th century, explanations for the strandflat shifted from involving one or two processes to including many more. Thus most modern explanations are of polygenetic type. Grand-scale observations on the distribution of strandflats tend to favour an origin in connection to the Quaternary glaciations, while in-detail studies have led scholars to argue that strandflats have been shaped by chemical weathering during the Mesozoic. According to this second view, the weathered surface would then have been buried in sediments to be freed from this cover during Late Neogene for a final reshaping by erosion. Hans Holtedahl regarded the strandflats as modified paleic surfaces, conjecturing that paleic surfaces dipping gently to the sea would favoured strandflat formation.

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