Chapter 4: The Rock Foundation of Nobel Prize Developments

The world we live in regionally may give the impression of providing a stable ground, terra firma. However, this impression sometimes needs to be modified depending on where we are on the globe and also which reference of time we apply. One of the first problems to be approached by the newly created Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1739 was the question of the progressive alterations of the coastal profile of the country. Significant changes in the water level could be observed even within a lifespan of a human. Valuable natural harbors in the archipelagoes could turn unusable in a few generations, affecting conditions of fishing. The question was if the land was rising or if the water level was being reduced? When it was discovered that the changes noted clearly varied along the extensive Swedish coast the answer was obvious. It was the land that was rising. This was soon deduced to be due to the pressure that the heavy inland ice existing some 10,000 years ago had applied. Not only did the ice suppress the rocks, in some places it also polished them to a silk-like texture. In some areas the height that the land has risen in recent times is quite impressive. At the island of Blidö in the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago, where my family has its summer houses, it is about 60 centimeters in 100 years. Thus what were two rocks that barely reached above the water level when I was a child has now developed into an island with grass and bushes. It can be added that the expected rise of the water level because of global warming will have essentially no effects in some parts of the east coast of Sweden because it is compensated for by the land elevation…