Raukar near Langhammars - Gotland, Sweden
N 57° 59.837 E 019° 10.799
34V E 392419 N 6429856
The limestone pillars called raukar are found in the Baltic Sea area on the shores of Gotland and Öland and in northern Norway. Some particularly fine specimens can be found at Langhammars in northern Gotland.
Waymark Code: WM164BW
Location: Gotland, Sweden
Date Posted: 05/02/2022
Views: 2
EN: 550 million years ago at the time of the Cambrian, today's Baltic Sea area with Gotland, Farö, Öland and southern Scandinavia was still in the tropical latitudes, but slowly migrated north due to the continental drift. Over the next 100 million years, the flooded area gradually silted up and formed a shallow sea. In the millennia that followed, the first coral banks developed in the warm water, which then over the next 20 million years developed into mighty limestone-sandstone layers of varying hardness containing a large number of fossils.
In the aftermath of the last Ice Age, coastal areas were slowly being raised and wave-induced erosion slowly eroded the soft limestone-sandstone layers. The remaining rauks consist of a harder rock core and have so far survived the erosion and leaching by the Baltic Sea quite well. The forms that are left behind are often very bizarre and are reminiscent of figures from northern troll sagas. Rauks can now be found on the western coasts of Gotland and neighboring islands such as Farö and Stora Karlsö and on Öland, but also in Sarek National Park in northern Sweden and on the northern coast of Norway in Finnmark.
The Swedish government declared the area around the rauks at Langhammars on the island of Farö, north of Gotland, as a nature reserve in the 1970s. There are about 50 rauks with a height between 4m and 10m, which are accessible to everyone free of charge. A parking lot is located about 160m south.
References:
- Langhammars, page of the administration of Gotland, Swedish language
- Rauk, Wikipedia