Offshore Sand Bar Field in Gelting Bay, Baltic Sea

Up to 20 parallel offshore sand bars have developed in the breaker zone of southeastern Gelting Bay. Crests are as much as 1000 m long, wavelengths vary from 7 m inshore to 70 offshore, and heights range from 5 to 70 cm. The bars consist of fine to medium grained sand derived from till and are formed by waves driven by northwesterly winds.

Use Cases

• Modeling nearshore sediment transport based on bar wavelength and height variations.
• Analyzing coastal geomorphology based on the described bar asymmetry and orientation.
• Studying storm impact and recovery cycles based on the described destruction and rebuilding processes.
• Mapping seabed topography based on the spatial distribution of up to 20 parallel bars.

Strengths

• Description provides specific morphological measurements: crest lengths up to 1000 m, wavelengths from 7 to 70 m, heights from 5 to 70 cm.
• Description details the sediment composition (fine to medium grained sand derived from till) and formative process (waves driven by northwesterly winds).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to a single location in the Baltic Sea.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 01:27:40.066755; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Breaker zone in southeastern Gelting Bay, east of Flensburg in north Germany, western Baltic Sea.