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G 2 A Norwegian fjord.
 3 If you see a valley where the sides plunge straight into the water, then it is probably a drowned valley. Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand, is a fjord, cut by a glacier and now flooded by the sea. Fjords are often over 600 metres deep.
Drowned valleys
Drowned coastal valleys are given special names. If the valley was wide and shallow,
and is part of a lowland area, then it is called an estuary (see page 7 for a picture of an estuary). If the valley was cut by a glacier, and is in a mountain area, it is called a sea loch in Scotland. Other names used around the world include fjord (Norway) (picture 2) and sound (Canada, New Zealand (picture 3) and the United States).
Drowned valleys may stretch inland for many kilometres, so that the tides reach tens, or even hundreds, of kilometres inland.
Many big port cities have been founded
on the sheltered banks of estuaries, taking advantage of the deep water that occurs in
all drowned valleys. London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney are just some of the many examples of port cities built on estuaries.
A drowned glacial valley (picture 3) has very steep sides, so there is no place for cities to be built and they tend to remain areas
of wilderness.
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