FinlandThe land of a thousand lakes

In the centre of the earth there's magma, a melted stone mass whichcrystallizes into different types of igneous rock if it starts rising closer to theearth’s surface. If the magma is pushed up it cools down and slowly solidifiesinto plutonic rock which is formed deep down in the bedrock, but it can befound on the surface if old mountains have eroded in the course of millions ofyears.

The formation of the bedrock

Granite is the most commonrock in Finland and wasformed in just that way.Granite is very hard and doesnot crack and is unusuallyresistant to pressure andimpact.

Rapakivi

Rapakivi granite is quite a raretype of granite. It's mostlyfound in the south of Finlandand on Åland.

Rapakivi is a Finnish word and itmeans ”disintegrated rock”.The different heat expansioncoefficients of the minerals thatthe rock contains make theRapakivi very crumbly.

In Finland we have a lot of signs in nature from the ice age. For example, rochemoutonnées, tills, ridges, lakes, giant's kettles and glacial erratics.

Roche moutonnées: rock formations created by the passing of a glacier

Till: loose material mixed and mashed by the moving ice. When the ice melted

it fell onto the ground.

Ridges: A ridge is a narrow height which can have different origins, mainlyeskers, horsts and tills

The Ice Age in Finland

The Ice Age in Finland

Lakes: the Finnish lakes were formed when the icewas moving

Giant's kettles: As the water flowed under the ice,there was a stream that whirled round and causedrocks to drill holes in the bedrock

Glacial erratic: A large block of stone that movedwith the ice and when the ice melted it remainedwhere the melting ice left it, sometimes in a verystrange position, even standing on its edge

The last glacial period started 100 000 years ago andended 10 000 years ago.

A kettle is a shallow hole in the bedrock formed by streaming water thatmade rocks rotate in a swirl for a long period of time during the melting ofthe ice. The rock that formed the kettle is usually still at the bottom orbeside the hole and is unusually smooth and egg formed.

Giant’s kettles

In some kettles you can happen to findold coins, because people used tothink that it would give you luck if yougave a coin as an offering.

Our excursion to Hopom träsk

”Hopom träsk” is a fault linelake. When the Scandieswere formed 400 millionyears ago the bedrock brokeand the eastern side of thelake rouse vertically. Duringour excursion we were ableto see Giant erractic, Rochemoutonnées, Kettles, Tilland Rapakivi as well as thefault.

The climate in Finland

Four seasons

In Finland we have four seasons,winter, spring, summer and autumn.The longest season is the cold anddark winter that lasts fromNovember until March.

In autumn the leaves fall off the treesand it gets darker again. It rains a lotand the temperature starts to sinkdown to +10 degrees and below.

The birds that have lived in Finlandover the summer fly away to warmerseas and countries.

AutumnHöst

Winter

In winter the temperature candrop to -30 degrees if not lower.It can be colder in northernFinland, but usually it is cold inthe whole country. It often snowsa lot in winter. Because of theglobal warming some winters arewarmer than before and thesnow easily turns into slush.

Vinter

In spring, which usually startsin March or April, the snowand ice melt away and thetemperature rises. It is lovelyto see the flowers bloom andthe grass and the leaves growagain after a long winter.

SpringVår

Summers are relatively warm but short.Some are rainier and some warmer thanothers. In Finland there have been manysummers when it has been just as warmas in Italy! It may come as a surprise, butFinland is close enough to the AtlanticOcean to be continuously warmed by theGulf Stream. The Gulf Stream combineswith the moderating effects of the BalticSea and numerous inland lakes to explainthe unusually warm climate compared toother regions that share the samelatitude, such as Alaska, Siberia andsouthern Greenland. Finns usuallyconsider May to be the starting point ofsummer and August the end of it.

SummerSommar

There are big differences between northern and southernFinland. Finland is located within the northern temperatezone. North of the Arctic Circle, where a third of Finlandlies, one can see the sun all day in the middle of summer. Inwinter, the sun rises over the horizon, but it doesn’t rise atall in northern Finland. The main factor influencing Finland'sclimate is the country's geographical position between the60th and 70th northern parallels in the Eurasian continent'scoastal zone.

Climate data for Finland

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year

Recordhigh °C

10.9 11.8 17.5 25.5 31.0 33.8 37.2 33.8 28.8 19.4 14.1 10.8 37.2

Recordlow °C

−51.5 −49.0 −44.3 −36.0 −24.6 −7.0 −5.0 −10.8 −18.7 −31.8 −42.0 −47.0 −51.5

Source: http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/lampotilaennatyksia

In the Köppen climate classification, the whole of Finland lies in the boreal zonecharacterized by warm summers and freezing winters. Within the country, thetemperatures vary considerably between the southern coastal regions and theextreme north, showing characteristics of both a maritime and a continental climate.