Visit to Vinga Island
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July 2, 2025
in Excursions, Nature

Visit to Vinga Island

Boat trip to – not Virgin Island – but nearly as good, Vinga Island in the Swedish West coast archipelago. Actually, the first island you approach when entering Swedish water by boat. In the old days, you would have the enemy Denmark on both side. Thus, it was important to head in the right direction to not end up in enemy water. The excursion was arranged by the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, at which I’m now affiliated researcher. Instead of having our monthly department meeting, the last one before the summer holiday, the head of department decided to take all employees on this guided boat trip to Vinga. What an excellent choice! We had such a lovely day and excellent lunch onboard. Importantly, Erik noted that the boat had a bar counter onboard the M/S Bellman made of brass.

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Erik wrote this text about the Vinga bedrock: The Vinga intrusion is one of the younger magmatic events in southwest Sweden. The intrusion was emplaced for about 950 Ma ago at a depth ranging between 4 –7 km. In this time several intrusions events took place in the area, in Älgön, Brattön and the east-west trending Gothenburg dykes. The intruding rock making Vinga and adjacent small islands are the so called Vinga porphyry. Plagioclase grains in a grey to reddish-grey matrix and the rock also contains fragments of the host rock. A conspicuous feature in the N–S trending shear zones which are visible in the bedrock surface.

Photo: Erik Sturkell. Our ship M/S Carl Michael Bellman from Strömma Kanalbolaget docked at the Vinga pier.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. Half the group led by our guide towards the lighthouse.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. The western point of Gattulven the northern arm of the Vinga island.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. The stairway in the 1889 lighthouse, 29 meter high.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. Gäveskärs light house on the way to Vinga.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. On the way back in sun, which meant we could sit outside.
Photo: Erik Sturkell. The 960 Ma Vinga porphyry rock which make up the island. Scale, a 10 kr coin in the lower left.