Submarine terraces and morphology in the Kieler Bucht, Western Baltic, and their relation to late Quaternary events

Abstract

From analysis of the densest network of echogrammes yet available for the Kieler Bucht, Western Baltic, the submarine erosional terraces have been mapped. In general these correlate well with the features mapped and described by Kolp (1976) for the adjacent Mecklenburger Bucht. The lower terraces are at ‐ 30 m and may reach 2100 m in broadness. Compared to present day conditions, the rates of cliff retreat at the time of formation were evidently much accelerated, due possibly to harsher climatic conditions including a greater intensity of winter lake ice, frosts, wind and rain. Other terraces at ‐ 27, ‐ 24, ‐ 19, and ‐ 14 m were identified, and these are related to syngressions in the various eustatic curves applicable to the Western baltic. A hypsometric curve for the submarine terrain of the Kieler Bucht, when compared to the relative sea level curve shows that 65% of the bay was transgressed in only 700 years. Maximum sedimentation rates in the Kieler Bucht should have occurred at this time, and independent data from dated cores from Vejsnäs Rinne support this prediction.