Collaborations and projects

We have recei­ved a grant from LONA to deve­lop our acti­vi­ti­es for child­ren and tee­na­gers. The grant is used to cre­a­te educa­tio­nal mate­ri­al and instruc­tions for teachers and to deve­lop the “Mini Ambas­sa­dors” con­cept. The pro­ject has a strong local founda­tion as we work with Biosphe­re Reser­ve Lake Vänern Archi­pe­la­go and Mount Kin­ne­kul­le, as well as with museums and schools wit­hin the geo­park area. The pro­ject is an out­do­or ven­tu­re of gre­at soci­al bene­fit as we make are­as avai­lab­le for children.

The pur­po­se is:

• to give child­ren and tee­na­gers wit­hin the geo­park area know­led­ge about their local envi­ron­ments through an educa­tio­nal effort, focus­sing on the tab­le mountains and their spe­ci­al geology
• to incre­a­se the children’s understan­ding of geo­lo­gy and the con­nec­tions between geo­lo­gy, bio­lo­gy, and cul­tural history
• to con­tri­bu­te to an incre­a­sed understan­ding of the earth systems, inclu­ding cli­ma­te change
• to pro­vi­de schools and teachers with gui­dan­ce, sup­port, and mate­ri­al so that they can car­ry out the items above
• to deve­lop the Mini Ambas­sa­dors con­cept in col­la­bo­ra­tion with Biosphe­re Reser­ve Lake Vänern Archi­pe­la­go and Mount Kinnekulle.

We are study­ing the geo­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­te­ristics of the gra­ni­te-gneiss that was quar­ri­ed from bene­ath Cam­bri­an sand­sto­ne at Lug­nås for mill­sto­ne pro­duc­tion over a peri­od of many cen­tu­ri­es.  Whi­le the­re is lite­ra­tu­re cove­ring the soci­al and indust­ri­al histo­ry of tho­se mines, geo­lo­gi­cal rea­sons for why this rock was well sui­ted to mill­sto­ne pro­duc­tion have been less explo­red.  The quar­ri­ed rock is spe­ci­al becau­se it appe­ars to have under­go­ne some unu­su­al che­mi­cal weat­he­ring through reac­tion with water, which meant that it could be cut into mill­sto­nes but also remai­ned strong enough that it did not wear too quick­ly as a millstone.

Rock cores have been extrac­ted, which are cur­rent­ly under­go­ing che­mi­cal and mecha­ni­cal tes­ting, and it is plan­ned to use the new synchro­tron faci­li­ty in Lund, Max­IV, to help understand the unu­su­al che­mi­cal weat­he­ring pro­ces­ses.  Ana­ly­ses are expec­ted to be com­ple­ted during 2021 and the pro­ject is a coo­pe­ra­tion between The Geo­lo­gi­cal Sur­vey of Swe­den, Stock­holm Uni­ver­si­ty, Lund Uni­ver­si­ty, Lin­ne­as Uni­ver­si­ty and The Geo­lo­gi­cal Sur­vey of Norway.