Fjord

Geologically, a fjord or fiord (English pronunciation: ⁱ/ˈfjɔːrd/ or ⁱ/fiˈɔːrd/) is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion. There are many fjords on the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, Chile, Greenland, Iceland, the Kerguelen Islands, New Zealand, Norway, Labrador, Nunavut, Newfoundland, and Washington state.

Formation

A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by ice segregation and abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by the rebounding of Earth's crust as the ice load and eroded sediment is removed (also called isostasy or glacial rebound). In some cases this rebound is faster than sea level rise. Most fjords are deeper than the adjacent sea; Sognefjord, Norway, reaches as much as 1,300 m (4,265 ft) below sea level. Fjords generally have a sill or shoal (bedrock) at their mouth caused by the previous glacier's reduced erosion rate and terminal moraine. In many cases this sill causes extreme currents and large saltwater rapids (see skookumchuck). Saltstraumen in Norway is often described as the world's strongest tidal current. These characteristics distinguish fjords from rias (e.g. the Bay of Kotor), which are drowned valleys flooded by the rising sea.

Fjords (board game)

Fjords is a tile-based German-style board game designed by Franz-Benno Delonge and published in 2005 by Hans im Glück and Rio Grande Games. Unlike some other games in the genre, Fjords is strictly limited to two players. The game is played in two phases: exploration and expansion. In the first phase, the players draw random hexagonal tiles and place them on the gaming table in alternating sequence to form a map. Tile edges must consistently match with respect to terrain types (clear land, mountain, and water). On some of the tiles they place their four villages. In the second phase, they expand from their villages by placing tokens of their colour on the tiles. The player who succeeds in placing the most tokens (by cutting off the other player's access to tiles) wins the game.

This game is not to be confused with the game Fjord, a military simulation situated in Norway during World War II.

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Fjord (disambiguation)

A fjord is a long, narrow inlet between cliffs typically formed from a glaciated valley.

Fjord may also refer to:

Business

See also