Country: Denmark
Visit websiteGeopark West Jutland is located in the Central Denmark Region and includes the three municipalities Lemvig, Struer and Holstebro, a part of the Limfjord and extends about 50 km offshore into the North Sea to also include part of the Jutland Reef. The Geopark has a total area of 4,759 km2. Of this, the land area makes up 1,560 km2, marine areas in the Limfjord covers 425 km2and marine areas in the North Sea covers the remaining 2,775 km2.
The unique glacial landscape in western Jutland was mapped over 100 years ago by the geologist N.V. Ussing who identified, amongst other features, the Main Stationary Line as a marked boundary in the landscape between a hilly glacial landscape and flat outwash plains. This landscape developed as a result of repeated ice ages that each contributed to its formation: during the Quaternary period of Earth history, enormous ice sheets sculpted the impressive ice age landscapes that form the core of Geopark West Jutland. These landscapes mark the final period when the Earth was in a deep freezer and when the Scandinavian Ice Sheet extended from the mountains of Norway down to Denmark. In addition to the ice age landscapes there is a series of other landforms that developed after the end of the ice age by rivers and coastal processes, as well as by the powerful westerly winds thatcharacterize the west coast of Denmark. It was however, during the last ice age –the Main Advance that tookplace 23.000 -21.000years ago when the ice reached its maximum extent –that most of the landscape in the geopark was formed.
