The Craziest Erosion You Have Never Seen!

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]We are going to check out some high-speed water erosion in Norway. This can be found on both sides of the Oslo Fjord. My favorite spot is this coastline because the erosion is so clean.

[00:00:15]But what type of erosion are we looking at?

[00:00:19]You know what a wingtip vortex is? It's a horizontal vortex that forms where flow directions converge.

[00:00:27]Horizontal vortices are what carved these perfectly sculpted grooves.

[00:00:33]And the parabolic grooves as well.

[00:00:42]When water flow encounters an obstacle, a zone of turbulence arises that spins as a reverse eddy. This is the origin of the horizontal vortex. And here it's positioned perpendicular to the current.

[00:00:55]As it wraps around the obstacle, the vortex goes downstream to make these linear grooves.

[00:01:05]In low-speed flow, the zone of turbulence expands outwards.

[00:01:10]But because these grooves immediately wrap to parallel, we are dealing with a very high-speed flow.

[00:01:19]And the length of these grooves shows how ridiculously powerful the reverse eddy was.

[00:01:28]There are also these parabolic grooves that don't have an obstacle. This is because the obstacle was later eroded away completely.

[00:01:37]A simple ledge can also induce this fluid motion.

[00:01:41]And they can even form on an originally flat surface.

[00:01:46]But the approved explanation is that they were from rocks that were carried at the bottom of a glacier. So, how does a glacier use a rock to carve a parabolic shape? Did it pick up the rock right here and immediately break it in half and separate it and then move it down? This is impossible.

[00:02:07]Because glaciers don't flow with any turbulence. So, they simply can't make these. It's in the wrong state of matter.

[00:02:16]That is why when this theory was first published in '89 by Canadian geologist John Shaw, subglacial meltwater floods of immense volume was the source.

[00:02:28]He also proposed that this meltwater flood is what made drumlins.

[00:02:36]Which are essentially the same feature, just larger and usually made out of sediment and not solid rock.

[00:02:55]You can clearly see how streamlined rocks dominate this landscape. All of these islands have clear signs of high-speed water erosion.

[00:03:08]You can see how there are streamlined features inside of larger streamlined features.

[00:03:14]This is the amazing quality of the multi-scale principle of fluid dynamics.

[00:03:20]Because Norway is high in latitude and has a notable glacial past, that doesn't mean that everything on the landscape was made by a glacier.

[00:03:33]You have to look carefully and understand the physics of what goes on in erosion to make such features.

[00:03:41]I highly recommend to all of you that you go on Google Earth and check out this landscape for yourself. It's very interesting and there's a lot of cool things you can find.

[00:03:51]All the islands that have exposed rock have these incredible features.

[00:03:57]And there are plenty of islands that are covered in dirt and have tree cover. And we can only imagine what sort of amazing erosional features lie underneath the topsoil.

[00:04:11]When you're looking at these islands, it's also good to notice how the whole island itself can be streamlined.

[00:04:18]And you can see all the channels that go in between the islands.

[00:04:27]So, please enjoy the rest of the footage I've collected.

[00:04:31]And thanks for watching. I really appreciate you guys' support. And please like and subscribe if you haven't already.

[00:04:38]And if you have any questions, let me know in the comments and I'll answer them.

[00:04:42]And thanks again for watching and keep an open mind.

[00:04:47]But think for yourself and look at the exact features and see how it's all the work of detailed fluid motion and not a big, heavy, unresponsive glacier.

[00:05:02]Thanks for watching. Have a great day.