page_title: Öland
section_title: Environment
hierarchical_section_title: Öland / Environment
caption_attribution_description: English: Eketorp fortress at Stora alvaret, Öland, Sweden
context_page_description: Öland is the second largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area of 1,342 square kilometres and is located in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Småland. The island has 26,000 inhabitants. It is separated from the mainland by the Kalmar Strait and connected to it by the 6-kilometre Öland Bridge, which opened on 30 September 1972.
context_section_description: The dominant environmental feature of the island is the Stora Alvaret, a limestone pavement which is the habitat of numerous rare and endangered species. The first known scientific study of the biota of the Stora Alvaret occurred in the year 1741 with the visit of Linnaeus. The underlying bedrock layer is mainly Cambrian sandstone and alum chert, and  Ordovician limestone that dates from an approximate range of 540 to 450 million years ago. The Cambrian trilobite Eccaparadoxides oelandicus is named after the island.
  Öland is served by a perimeter highway, Route 136. In 2011 the Gripen Gas company filed a request for test drilling on Öland for natural gas. The request was approved by Bergsstaten, the governmental agency responsible for handling geological issues regarding prospecting. The approval has been met with criticism on the municipal and county administrative levels, citing that the many cracks in the limestone bedrock could cause the groundwater to become contaminated by the gas prospecting.
caption: Stora Alvaret on southeast of Öland with Eketorp Fortress in background
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