Relations of the Chalk and Drift in Möen and Rügen

Abstract

I. I ntroduction . Möen, one of the Danish islands, lies on the south-east of Seeland Rügen, belonging to Germany, is very near the northern coast of Pomerania. They are separated in a north-westerly to a south-easterly direction by about 35 miles of sea, and on clear days are visible one from the other. Both districts have been for long—one of them more than half a century—classic ground in the annals of glacial geology. Our past work in England and elsewhere had made us for some time anxious, if only for comparative purposes, to undertake a persons examination of sections so diversely interpreted, and an opportunity of gratifying this desire occurred last summer. We first visited M6en, and about a fortnight later landed in Rügen, remaining in each a sufficient time to examine all the more important sections, with the results which will be found in this paper. The ground in each island is generally low, but it becomes more undulating towards the east, and rises on that side into a range of Chalk-downs capped with Drift and covered by beech-woods. Each of these tracts ends abruptly in a line of lofty Chalk-cliffs, and these, in both cases, exhibit at many spots that rock and the Drift in relations which are peculiar and abnormal. Many geologists have examined the islands and published explanations of the phenomena which they present. Some maintain that the Glacial beds have been included in the Chalk by a series of acute folds ; others, that these beds