Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
12.000 °E
13.000 °E
14.000 °E
Arkona Basin
N
0
15
30
20
km
Falster-Rügen
Plane
9
8
20
Pomeranian
Bight
Oder
palaeo-
valley
7
5
6
10
Rügen
11
Mecklenburg
Bay
Barth
4
12
3
20
13
Greifswald
Rostock
2
14
Southern Baltic Coast
North
Atlantic
Poel
Coastal barriers
15
1
1 - Rustwerder
6 - Zingst
11- Baaber Heide
Usedom
2 - Kieler Ort
7 - Hiddensee
12 - Großer Strand
3 - HoheDüne
8 - Bug
13 - Peenemünde
Baltic
Sea
Wismar
4 - Fischland
9 - Schaabe
14 - Pudagla
North
Sea
5 - D arß
10 - Schmale Heide
15 - Swine Gate
Glaciolacustrine sediments
Feeder cliffs(
height mainly > 40m)
Feeder cliffs
Study area
Fig. 12.1
Geographic setting along the southern Baltic Sea coast. Pleistocene substrate is shown
in
grey
, Holocene coastal barriers are shown in
red
. Feeder cliffs are divided into two categories
regarding altitude (
bold line
indicates cliff height mainly > 40 m). Note the course of the -10-
and -20-m isobaths, which characterize the different offshore relief east and west of the Fischland
barrier
-15 to -18 m at the edges to the proper basins in the Baltic, where marine mud accu-
mulates. In some places, drowned river valleys such as the Oder palaeo-valley can
be traced, incised during the Late Glacial and Early Holocene, when the water table
in the Baltic basin was lowered to about 40 m below mean sea level (msl), i.e. to
−
40 m. During this period, large areas of the present sea bottom were characterized
by a landscape of wetlands, shallow lakes and even forests.
When the eustatic sea-level rise had risen to the altitude of the thresholds of the
Great Belt system in Denmark, the Baltic basin became connected to the North
Sea. This first intrusion of saltwater into the Baltic basin took place at around
9,800-9,200 year cal BP when marine waters could enter through the Great Belt
The subsequent sea-level rise is called the Littorina transgression in the Baltic Sea
during which the landscapes of today's coast drowned. During the early transgres-
sion phase, the rise was rapid, more than 10 mm/year, but slowed later on. Earlier
investigations have shown that on Rügen the sea level reached a position of -5
m by c. 8,000 year cal BP and a level between -1 and -0.5 m at c. 6,500 year
rise largely decreased, is believed to be the time when the main coastal sediment
wedge accumulated between the Pleistocene headlands, thereby isolating lagoons
from the Baltic. During the subsequent some thousand years, the sea level varied
