Modelling Coastline Change of the Darss-Zingst Peninsula with Sedsim - The Baltic Sea Basin - page 283

Fig. 14.1 Area of investigation. The peninsula, located in the southern Baltic Sea, between the
cities Rostock and Stralsund, shelters a chain of lagoons from the open sea
The shape of the peninsula today is the result of Holocene sediment transport
processes. During the initial phase of the Littorina transgression at 8,000 14 C years
before present, the land simply drowned without remarkable coastal erosion. The
sea level rise was very fast, approximately 1 cm/year, documented quite well by
relative sea level curves (e.g. Lampe et al. 2005 ) . Starting around 4,000 14 C years
before present this speed slowed down rapidly, causing a straightening of the coast
(Meyer et al. 2008 ) . Large parts of the southern Baltic Sea coast were reshaped by
erosion, transport, and accumulation of sediment, forming spits and lagoons. In the
Baltic Sea, these lagoons are called “Bodden” or “Haff”. For the evolution of the
Darss-Zingst Bodden chain various scenarios do exist (Schumacher 2000 , Lampe
2002 ) . The main concept is the erosion of glacial till complexes with a transport
of the resulting silt to deeper water depths and the accumulation of the remaining
coarser sediments along the coast. A prominent example for a glacial till complex is
the Fischland cliff, while the Neudarss area evolved step by step by the accumulation
of sand (Schumacher 2000 ) . The main direction of the longshore transport of this
sediment is west-east aligned, indicated by the shape of the peninsula. In addition,
an accretion by landward over-washes is discussed by Lampe ( 2002 ) . These regimes
are still valid at recent time, with sediment sources at cliff regions in the Fischland
area, and accumulation mainly eastwards at the Darsser Ort and in the very shallow
waters around the Bock Island.