Bukkehåmmårtjørna or Bukkehåmårtjønne is a small

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

Vågå Municipality Vågå () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vågåmo. Other village areas in Vågå include Lalm and Bessh ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (the municipalities of Jevnaker and Lunner were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken on the same date). The ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The lake is located in the eastern part of the Jotunheimen mountains, just inside the boundaries of the

Jotunheimen National Park Jotunheimen National Park ( no, Jotunheimen nasjonalpark, "Home of the Giants") is a national park in Norway, recognized as one of the country's premier hiking and fishing regions. The national park covers and is part of the larger area Jotunhe ...

. At an elevation of above sea level, this is the highest lake that has been investigated as a

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

archive in southern Norway. A small glacier, Bukkehåmmårbreen, is draining meltwater into the lake at present. This

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

reformed just short of 6,000 years ago following the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

climate optimum and has existed continuously since. After growing gradually towards 4,000 years before present (BP) the glacier has been of near present size over the last 4,000 years, growing slightly larger over the last 2,000-2,500 years. Prior to the climate optimum and following the

deglaciation Deglaciation is the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume. Thus, it refers to the retreat of a glacier, an ice shee ...

the glacier melted some 10,000 years before present. The flat valley-shoulder that the lake is eroded into is locally known as a "''fly''". This particular level at about above sea level and is believed to have been formed between 100 and 85 million years ago during the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period. Standing on the shore-line of Bukkehåmmårtjørna thus means that you are standing on the remnants of a landscape that the

Dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s ruled. The small lake existed prior to the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...

since it contains organic material older than 30,000 years old.Lie and Sandvold (1997): unpublished master thesis) Currently being reassessed, growing evidence now indicates that much of the landscape that can be seen from this site is practically unchanged since the age of the

Mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

who lived on the wide plateaus more than 40,000 years ago. The view from the lake, or higher up on the mountain-peak Høgdebrotet therefore includes a view into the landscapes of the distant past, including the landscape of the dinosaurs, the pre-ice age landscape, the landscape of the Mammoth during the last glacial period. By squinting your eyes and imagining the present forest-limit below, located some 300 m higher than at present and by imagining the glaciers of Leirungsalpene being absent you can also see the landscape as it was 7,000 years ago.

References

Vågå Lakes of Innlandet {{Innlandet-lake-stub

See also

References