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The Ivalojoki River in Lapland, northern Finland, was the scene of a gold rush in the 1870s. Alluvial gold is still extracted at a small scale in the area.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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The Koli Hills in eastern Finland are remnants of a mountain chain, which formed almost 2 billion years ago, when continental plates collided. The hills consist of quartzites at the base of a Proterozoic sequence, overlying the Archean basement in the background, partly covered by Lake Pielinen.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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The Kvarken archipelago in western Finland is an outstanding example of post-glacial uplift. About 20 000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, the centre of the continental glacier was located in this area. The ice mass pressed the earth's crust almost a kilometer downwards. As the glacier got thinner, the surface of the earth started to rise back. The earth is still rising, about 8 mm a year in the Kvarken area.
Photo: Olli Breilin
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Hiekkapakka Island is part of a wave-washed esker ridge
that rises out of the water in Lake Pielinen, eastern Finland.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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Finland has over 100 000 lakes covering about a tenth of the surface area. Most of the lakes are concentrated in the Lake District in the central part of the country, like Porosalmi, part of Lake Haukivesi in Rantasalmi, eastern Finland.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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Finland is also a land of mires, which cover almost a third of the total area. In a mire, the plant communities form the peat, the soil in which they grow. Peat accumulates at a rate of about one millimeter a year. Kesonsuo in Ilomantsi, eastern Finland, is seen here during early summer.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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Sottunga is part of the large archipelago of south-western Finland, consisting of thousand of islands and is a unique mosaic of land and sea. The Proterozoic bedrock was pressed down during the Quaternary Glaciation and is now rising from the Baltic Sea. Outcrops of migmatitic gneisses, polished by the massive continental ice sheet are common along the shores of the islands.
Photo: Kari Kälviä
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Loppi, southern Finland
Long, narrow eskers were deposited by subglacial streams flowing between ice walls or in an ice tunnel of a stagnant or retreating glacier, and were left behind when the ice melted at the end of last Quaternary Ice Age, about 10 000 years ago.
Photo : Jari Väätäinen
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