Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Additionally, Baltic Sea sediments provide high-resolution records of climate and
environmental changes during the Quaternary for the eastern North Atlantic realm.
That record allows tracing back not only the change in the natural environment
for the last 130,000 years but also the human impact and therefore socio-economic
developments for at least the last 10,000 years.
The densely populated Baltic drainage area and the exploitation of the Baltic Sea
resources cause permanent conflicts between economic interests and the protection
of the unique ecological environment of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, the design of
an effective interface between the different stakeholders is of vital importance for
the community in the Baltic area and of great methodological interest for scientists,
managers, and politicians not only in Europe but also worldwide.
The 33rd International Geological Congress (IGC) did provide the unique oppor-
tunity to discuss questions related to the points listed above in a very general way
with the international geological scientific community. Therefore, a special sym-
posium “The Baltic Sea Basin” was held on August 11, 2008, within the frame of
the 33rd IGC at Oslo, Norway, in order to foster the understanding of the Baltic
basin as a unit in terms of genesis, structure, ongoing processes and utilization. At
the symposium, geoscientists, climate researchers, biologists, archaeologists, and
computer scientists discussed questions regarding
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the formation of the Baltic basin and geological resources,
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the stratigraphic record - mirror of climatic changes during the last
glacial/interglacial cycle,
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coastal processes and sediment dynamics,
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the feedback between socio-economic driving forces and the natural environment
since the prehistoric colonization,
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the management of the marine ecosystem, and
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monitoring strategies and technical device design, including satellite observation
methods.
In this topic we report the results of the symposium. It is the first time that in
a joint publication, scientists from different disciplines give a comprehensive and
general overview about the Baltic Sea basin.
After this introduction, Part II is devoted to the
geological and tectonic evolu-
tion
of the Baltic basin. Sliaupa and Hoth give an overview about the geological
history of the Baltic Sea basin from the Precambrian to the Quaternary, including
the genesis of geological resources. The chapter gives a summary of the evolution
and the known resources of the Baltic sedimentary basin focusing on its central
part. According to new evidence for the origin of the Baltic Sea, the basin was
formed during Late Ediacaran-Early Cambrian time caused by the reactivation of
the weakest lithosphere part of the East European craton. All the following stages of
basin subsidence were dominated by extensional tectonics. However, the crust was
most intensively structured in NW-SE-directed compression during Late Silurian
and Early Devonian time due to the collision of Laurentia and Baltica. The Permo-
Carboniferous period is mainly marked by magmatic intrusions in the southern part
