Kjeragbolten (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: ''Kjerag Bolt'') is a

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

on the mountain

Kjerag Kjerag or Kiragg is a mountain in the Sandnes municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The tall mountain sits on the southern shore of Lysefjorden, just southwest of the village of Lysebotn. Its northern side is a massive cliff, plunging almos ...

Sandnes Sandnes () is a city and municipality in Rogaland, Norway. It lies immediately south of Stavanger, the 4th largest city in Norway and together, the Stavanger/Sandnes area is the third-largest urban area in Norway. The urban city of Sandnes lies ...

municipality in

Rogaland Rogaland () is a Counties of Norway, county in Western Norway, bordering the North Sea to the west and the counties of Vestland to the north, Vestfold og Telemark to the east and Agder to the east and southeast. In 2020, it had a population of 47 ...

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 rock itself is a

glacial deposit image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

wedged in a large crevice in the mountain. It is a popular tourist destination and is accessible without any climbing equipment. However, it is suspended above a deep abyss. It is also a popular site for BASE jumping. The boulder is just southwest of the village of

Lysebotn Lysebotn is a village in Sandnes municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The village is located at the eastern end of the Lysefjorden in a very isolated valley that is only accessible by one road or by boat. The name itself means the "bottom nd ...

, just south of the

Lysefjorden Lysefjord or Lysefjorden is a fjord located in the Ryfylke area in Rogaland county in southwestern Norway. The long fjord lies in the municipalities of Strand, Norway, Strand and Sandnes, about east of the Stavanger (city), city of Stavanger. T ...

Geology

Rogaland lies in a weak tectonic zone, allowing the river to dig into the surrounding sandstone

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

. During the several

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

s known to have occurred in Scandinavia, Norway was completely covered in glaciers. Between the glaciations, the meltwater formed and reformed the valley up to 22 times. After the last glacial period, global warming caused a rise in sea level, flooding the fjords. The boulder was deposited during this last glaciation at around 50,000 B.C. As the Norwegian Glacier melted, it was accompanied by a rebound in rock formations as the ice was removed. In Kjeragbolten's case, the rebound was faster than the rising sea level, which wedged the rock into its current position.

Tourism

Kjeragbolten has long been a famed

photo op A photo op (sometimes written as photo opp), short for photograph opportunity (or photo opportunity), is an arranged opportunity to take a photograph of a politician, a celebrity, or a notable event.Where the Hell is Matt? Where the Hell is Matt? is an Internet phenomenon that features a video of Dancing Matt (Matt Harding) doing a dance "jig" in many different places around the world in 2005. The video garnered popularity on the video sharing site YouTube. There are ...

'' where traveler

Matt Harding Matthew Harding (born September 27, 1976) is an American traveler, video game designer, and Internet celebrity who is known as Dancing Matt, for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various internatio ...

danced atop the precarious boulder. Because of its enormous popularity, long lines usually form with people who want to have a photo from the site. Expected waiting time can be anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour, especially when there are cruise ships in Stavanger.

In popular culture

*A movie song called '
Amali thumali
'' (from 01:33m to 1:35m and from 04:19m to 04:21m) from the 2011 blockbuster

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...

movie ''

Ko (film) ''Ko'' () is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language political action thriller film directed by K. V. Anand, and written by Anand and the duo Suresh and Balakrishnan. The film stars Jiiva, Ajmal, Karthika (in her major Tamil debut), and Piaa Bajpai in l ...

'' features the lead couples dancing on the top of the

at Kjeragbolten. *Kjeragbolten is depicted on the cover of the album ''

A View from the Top of the World ''A View from the Top of the World'' is the fifteenth studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater, released on October 22, 2021. This is their first album to be recorded at their own studio, DTHQ (Dream Theater Headquarters), a ...

'' by American

progressive metal Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad :Fusion music genres, fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven s ...

band

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline
Flickr Kjerabolten Images

World BASE fatalities
Landforms of Rogaland Cliffs of Norway Forsand Glacial deposits of Norway Rock formations of Norway

Geology

Tourism

In popular culture

See also

References

External links