Strandflat
[1] Outside Norway proper, strandflats can be found in other high-latitude areas, such as Antarctica, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Far North, Greenland, Svalbard, Sweden, and Scotland.
[4][5] Strandflats are not fully flat and may display some local relief, meaning that it is usually not possible to assign them a precise elevation above sea level.
[8] On the seaward side, the strandflat continues underwater down to depths of 30 to 60 metres (98 to 197 ft), where a steep submarine slope separates it from older low relief paleic surfaces.
[2] At some locations, the landward end of the strandflat or the region slightly above contains relict sea caves partly filled with sediments that predate the last glacial period.
[14][B] The Arctic explorer Fritjof Nansen agreed with Reusch that marine influences formed the strandflat, but added in 1922 that frost weathering was also of key importance.
[11][C] Contrary to the glacial and periglacial hypotheses, Julius Büdel and Jean-Pierre Peulvast regard weathering of rock into saprolite as important in shaping the strandflat.
As such, Peulvast considered the saprolite found in the strandflat, and the weathering that produced it, to predate the Last glacial period and possibly the Quaternary glaciations.
[18] A similar opinion is expressed by Hans Holtedahl who wrote that "[t]he strandflat must have formed later the main (Tertiary) uplift of the Scandinavian landmass".
[8] To this Holtedahl added that in Trøndelag between Nordland and Western Norway the strandflat could be a surface formed before the Jurassic, then buried in sediments and at some point freed from this cover.
[8] In the understanding of Tormod Klemsdal strandflats may be old surfaces shaped by deep weathering that escaped the uplift that affected the Scandinavian Mountains further east.
[2] The strandflat at Bømlo is considered by Ola Fredin and co-workers to be equivalent to the sediment-capped top of Utsira High offshore west of Stavanger.
[12] This view is also disputed by Haakon Fossen and co-workers who state that the basement surface under the northern North Sea formed not at a single time.
