Norway’s striking “Dragon’s Eye,” a natural hollow in the rocks along the northwestern coastline, likely formed around 20,000 years ago beneath the vast Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. This geological marvel resembles a reptilian eye, with a boulder at the bottom against a bed of white sand and algae forming the pupil.
According to Francis Chantel Nixon, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, this feature, called a pothole, emerged during the last ice age. Glacial landforms like the Dragon’s Eye are shaped by meltwater filled with abrasive sediments, which erode the bedrock beneath the ice sheet, creating smooth-walled depressions.
The Dragon’s Eye, measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) across, is a specific type of p-form, sculpted by turbulent meltwater currents that concentrate erosion in circular patterns. As the meltwater slows or vanishes, sediments settle and get trapped inside the pothole, possibly explaining the boulder at the bottom.
Around 16,000 years ago, as the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet retreated, features like the Dragon’s Eye were exposed. Made of gneiss, a metamorphic rock with colorful mineral bands, this pothole adds to the fantastical landscape of Norway.
