Trolltunga

Trolltunga, meaning Troll's Tongue, is a narrow rock slab jutting horizontally from a mountainside in Ullensvang Municipality, Vestland county, Norway, at an elevation of about 1,126 meters and roughly 700 meters above the lake Ringedalsvatnet below. It is carved from Precambrian bedrock, granite penetrated by gneiss along the cliff face, and it took its horizontal tongue shape during the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, when meltwater from the retreating glacier seeped into cracks in the rock, froze, and expanded, breaking off large angular blocks that the ice then carried away; that same freeze-thaw process continues to widen cracks along the formation today. This entity documents Trolltunga specifically as a geological formation, a granite and gneiss outcrop shaped by glacial ice-wedging along bedrock joints.