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Name : Dragon ’s Eye
fix : Uttakleiv Beach , Lofoten Islands , Norway
Norway’s Dragon Eye likely formed under the ice around 20,000 years ago and emerged 4,000 years later with deglaciation.
Coordinates:68.20987277137073 , 13.499777198454572
Why it ’s incredible : White sand , algae and a big bowlder give this born landform its distinctive eyelike appearance .
" Dragon ’s Eye " is a natural hollow in the rock’n’roll along Norway ’s northwestern coastline that looks just like a reptilian eye . A boulder that sits at the bottom of the hole support out against a seam of ashen Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin and algae , form the eye ’s school-age child .
Geological features like Norway’s Dragon’s Eye are called potholes. Dragon’s Eye measures roughly 5 feet (1.5 meters) across.
" The Dragon Eye is a rude feature that very belike formed beneath the large Fennoscandian Ice Sheet , possibly duringthe last frosting age,“Francis Chantel Nixon , an associate prof of forcible geography and quaternary geology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology , told Live Science in an email . " This specific character of polar landform is call a pothole . "
Related : Why does Norway have so many fiord ?
The Fennoscandian Ice Sheet was an enormous glacier that blanket Scandinavia , as well as parts of Northern Europe and northwesterly Russia , during the last glacial maximum , around 20,000 age ago . Glaciation can go to all kinds of geological organization , including features call plastic forms , or phosphorus - physique , which result from erosion of the bedrock beneath the trash sail , Nixon say .
" P - word form are make by meltwater full of scratchy sediments , " Nixon enunciate . These sediment include rocks of all shapes and sizes , ranging from fine backbone to giant boulders . High - pressing meltwater currents moving beneath the sparkler may " sculpt the basics into smooth - walled depression , which can be straight , curving or circular , and on the order of centimeters to several meters in width and deepness , " Nixon say .
pothole like Dragon ’s Eye are a eccentric of atomic number 15 - shape thought to be shaped by particularly churning meltwater flow that reduce abrasion and erosion in round patterns . " When the meltwater eventually slow up down or disappears , the rough-cut sediments will take root out of suspension and become trammel inside the chuckhole , " Nixon say , adding that this might be how a boulder come to sit down at the bottom of Dragon ’s Eye .
— Eye of the Sahara : Mauritania ’s giant tilt dome that predominate over the desert
— Blood Falls : Antarctica ’s crimson falls forged from an ancient hidden center
— China ’s ' heavenly pits ' : The giant swallow hole that have ancient forest growing within
Dragon ’s Eye probably emerged from beneath the water ice around 16,000 years ago , when deglaciation occurred in the surrounding part , Nixon said . The retreat of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet endanger the fundamental principle and its pothole , which are made of gneiss , a case of metamorphic rock with colorfulmineral bandsthat add to the fantastical visual aspect of the centre .
The eye , which measure roughly 5 feet ( 1.5 meters ) across , look different depending on the fourth dimension of solar day and the tides . At gamey lunar time period , waves wash over the rock and roll , episodically stick and removing sand from the empty , so that the boulder sometimes pose on mere fundamentals . The algae inside the eye also face different depending on the metre of year and the light source .
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