Bukkehåmmårtjørna or Bukkehåmårtjønne is a small

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

Vågå Municipality Vågå () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of ...

Innlandet Innlandet is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. It was created on 1 January 2020 with the merger of the old counties of Oppland and Hedmark (Jevnaker Municipality and Lunner Municipality were transferred to the neighboring county of Viken ( ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The lake is located in the eastern part of the

Jotunheimen Jotunheimen (; "the home of the Jötunn") is a mountainous area of roughly in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all located in the Jotunheimen mountains, in ...

mountains, just inside the boundaries of the

Jotunheimen National Park Jotunheimen National Park (, ) 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 Jotunheimen. More than 250 peaks rise above an elevation ...

. 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 a region, 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 meteoro ...

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

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

reformed just short of 6,000 years ago following the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

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 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

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 Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s ruled. The small lake existed prior to the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered m ...

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.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

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 one can also see the landscape as it was 7,000 years ago.

References

Vågå Lakes of Innlandet {{Innlandet-lake-stub

See also

References