page_title: Sub-Cambrian peneplain
section_title: Extent
hierarchical_section_title: Sub-Cambrian peneplain / Extent
caption_attribution_description: English: Hardangervidda, Norway. The Hardangervidda is a mountain plateau ("vidda" in Norwegian) in the Hardanger region of western Norway. It is the largest such plateau in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate and is the site of one of Norway's largest glaciers. Much of the plateau is protected as part of a national park; it is a popular tourist and leisure destination for many outdoor activities. Norsk bokmål: Hardangervidda
context_page_description: The sub-Cambrian peneplain is an ancient, extremely flat, erosion surface that has been exhumed and exposed by erosion from under Cambrian strata over large swathes of Fennoscandia. Eastward, where this peneplain dips below Cambrian and other Lower Paleozoic cover rocks. The exposed parts of this peneplain are extraordinarily flat with relief of less than 20 m. The overlying cover rocks demonstrate that the peneplain was flooded by shallow seas during the Early Paleozoic.
  Being the oldest identifiable peneplain in its area the Sub-Cambrian peneplain qualifies as a primary peneplain.
  The surface was first identified Arvid Högbom in a 1910 publication with Sten Rudberg producing in 1954 the first extensive map. This mapping has been improved upon by Karna Lidmar-Bergström since the 1980s.
context_section_description: The Sub-Cambrian peneplain extends as an almost continuous belt along the eastern coast of Sweden for some 700 km from north to south. Near Stockholm and Hudiksvall the peneplain is densely dissected by joint valleys and at the High Coast is the Sub-Cambrian peneplain is both highly uplifted and eroded. More inland the peneplain can be traced at the crestal region of the South Swedish Dome where it is dissected by joint valleys. The Sub-Cambrian peneplain in the crestal region of the South Swedish Dome is the highest step in a piedmonttreppen system seen in Småland. In southern Sweden the peneplain surfaces tilt away from the crest of South Swedish Dome, to the northwest in Västergötland, to the northeast in Östergötland and to the east in eastern Småland. At this last region the sub-Cambrian peneplain is truncated to the west by a well defined and prominent scarp that separates it from the South Småland peneplain to the west. 
  In the Central Swedish lowland the peneplain extends further west being 450 km wide from west to east.
  In Bohuslän, at the northern end of the Swedish West Coast, there is some uncertainty over whether the hilltops are remnants of the peneplain. A similar situation occurs in central Halland. Further west, parts of the Paleic surface in Norway  have been interpreted to be part of the peneplain that has been tectonically uplifted and is apparently disrupted by NNE-SSW trending faults. Near the 1,100 m high Hardangervidda plateau in Norway is the Sub-Cambrian peneplain has been uplifted at least thousand meters, albeit Hardangervidda itself is part of a much younger peneplain formed in the Miocene epoch.
  
  At Stöttingfjället in northern Sweden the peneplain occur, as result of tectonic uplift, at about 650 meters giving origin to a series of water gaps including those of Ångermanälven, Indalsälven and Ljusnan. 
  In northwestern Finland the Ostrobothnian Plain is a continuation of the peneplain. To the east the Sub-Cambrian peneplain continues as an unconformity beneath the East European Platform. On a grand-scale the peneplain is not completely flat as it has been deformed. This deformation is an isostatic response to erosion and the load of Phanerozoic sediments that rests above much of the peneplain. The peneplain is characterized by a general lack of inselbergs. One exception to this is the island Blå Jungfrun in the Baltic Sea which is an ancient inselberg formed in Precambrian time and buried in sandstone after its formation. Blå Jungfrun remained buried until erosion of the East European Platform freed it in geologically recent times.
caption: Much of the Hardangervidda plateau in the Norway is believed to be an uplifted part of the peneplain
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