Q 01/05

Which comedy troupe's pet-shop sketch insists that a dead parrot is merely 'pining for the fjords'?

A) The Marx Brothers

B) Monty Python

C) The Three Stooges

D) The Kids in the Hall

Answer · why

B) Monty Python

Monty Python. The joke outlived the bird: when a 55-million-year-old Danish fossil was described as a parrot in 2008, the lead scientist ruled out any...

Q 02/05

Without its fjords, how long would Norway's roughly 29,000 km coastline be?

A) 250 km

B) 800 km

C) 2,500 km

D) 8,000 km

Answer · why

C) 2,500 km

2,500 km. That is a straight baseline; trace every fjord and bay and Norway's statisticians get about 29,000 km, because a coast grows longer the fine...

Q 03/05

What shape of valley does a glacier carve, which later becomes a fjord?

A) V-shaped

B) L-shaped

C) W-shaped

D) U-shaped

Answer · why

D) U-shaped

U-shaped. A river cuts only at its bed and leaves a V, but a glacier fills the valley and grinds the floor and walls together; side valleys are left h...

Q 04/05

What is the shallow rock bar across most fjord mouths called, a name borrowed from part of a doorway?

A) A lintel or header

B) A jamb or casing

C) A transom or architrave

D) A sill or threshold

Answer · why

D) A sill or threshold

A sill or threshold. The glacier lost its bite where it spread out near the coast, and the bar it left can seal in the deep water: in some fjords it i...

Q 05/05

The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro is often called a fjord but is actually what?

A) A flooded volcanic caldera

B) A lagoon behind a sandbar

C) A ria, a drowned river valley

D) A tectonic rift valley

Answer · why

C) A ria, a drowned river valley

A ria, a drowned river valley. No glacier carved it, and the river that did has vanished into the limestone: only after heavy rain does a spring burst...