Paleic surface

There have been various attempts at defining the subset of surfaces that compose the paleic surface in southern Norway. Geomorphologist Karna Lidmar-Bergström and co-workers recognize five widespread stepped surfaces. Dovre and Jotunheimen are residual mountains rising from the highest of the stepped surfaces. These mountains define a former envelope surface that is warped. Possibly the warping of the envelope surface reflects doming of the crust associated with the uplift of the Scandinavian Mountains in the Cenozoic. The Paleic surface has been reconstructed over the fjord area of western Norway. In the reconstructed paleic surface, very gentle valleys follow the same course as Sognefjord, Hardangerfjord, Gudbrandsdalen and Østerdalen, but not of other valleys and fjords of western Norway. The lower levels of the Paleic surface are thought to have been formed by etching and stripping and pediplanation. The climate under which these processes occurred was likely warmer than the present. Since the paleic surface formed river and glacier erosion has eroded much of it in Western Norway, but scattered remnants are ubiquitous. ==Paleic surfaces elsewhere in Norway==

In northern Norway a paleic surface extends in Varanger Peninsula. In the peninsula the paleic surface is made up of an undulating plateau between the altitudes of 200 and 600 m.a.s.l. The higher parts of the undulating plateau are made up by erosion-resistant rocks like quartzite. The lower parts are made up by weak rocks like shale and mudstone. At intermediate levels sandstone is common. Some parts of the paleic surface in Varanger Peninsula are a re-exposed unconformity that underlie sedimentary rock of Vendian (Late Neoproterozoic) age. The paleic surface might have been uplifted as much as 200–250 meters since middle Pliocene times. Parts of the continental shelf of Norway corresponds to paleic surfaces called bankflats. These surfaces bounds landward with submarine slopes that separates them from the strandflat. ==See also==