Landscape in Scandinavia of undulating hills and joint valleys
The Sub-Mesozoic hilly peneplains[1] or Sub-Mesozoic hilly relief is a landscape in
Scandinavia made up of undulating hills and joint valleys and occasional
kaolinizedbedrock in valley bottoms. The landscape formed in the
Mesozoic Era and was eventually drowned by the sea during the
Campaniantransgression and covered by a thick cover of
Cretaceoussedimentary rocks. Later erosion of the cover rocks partly re-exposed this landscape.[1] During the Quaternary epoch the re-exposed Mesozoic hilly relief escaped major
glacier erosion being only surficially scoured in parts.[1][2]
The Sub-Mesozoic hilly relief formed starting from a
peneplain formed in the
Permian and
Triassic. Remnants of this peneplain can be traced as a tilted
summit accordance in the
Swedish West Coast. This would indicated that Paleozoic strata that covered much of Fennoscandia elsewhere had been locally uplifted and eroded prior to the formation of the Sub-Mesozoic hilly relief.[3]
The Sub-Mesozoic hilly peneplains covers a contiguous zone along western and southern rims of the
South Swedish Dome. This zone includes most of
Bohuslän,
Halland and
Blekinge as well as parts of
Västergötland and
Scania.[4] In parts this surface and unconformity makes up an undulating hilly relief, while in other locations like Blekinge and northern Halland it is an
joint valley landscape.[5] In Bohuslän the Mesozoic
weathering associated with hilly relief is likely also responsible for creating the numerous small rock basins carved into
Bohus granite that characterize the coast.[6]