Die Kuste, 74 ICCE (2008), 1-17 
9 
Fig. 6: The bathymetry of the Baltic Sea basin (based upon data abstracted from Seifert, Tauber and 
Kayser, 2001) 
transgression from the North Sea. At that time, the continent was located approximately 25° 
north. The climate was subtropical - arid, and as the marine basin was shallow, layers of salt 
were deposited due to high evaporation. While in the North Sea basin the thickness of salt 
layers reaches up to 1,200 m, a maximum thickness of only 335 m was observed e.g. 50 km 
east of Ruegen Island, Baltic Sea (Petrobaltic Drilling K5-1/88; Lindert et al., 1993). For this 
reason, the influence of salt tectonics is decreasing from West to East. In the most eastern 
German sector of the Baltic Sea, salt deposits are rare (see Fig. 2), and their thickness is less 
than 100 m (Duphorn et ah, 1995). Salt-tectonic was not active here. 
During the Mesozoic Era, the general tendency of deposition continued. The thickness 
of the deposits decreased generally towards North, and close to the Rinkobing-Fyn-Height 
(see Fig. 1) the layers are partly tapering off. Due to eustatic water level fluctuations and 
the exposure to hydrodynamic influence, deposits are ranging from fine- to coarse-grained 
sediments reflecting their depth of deposition. At the end of the Jurassic period (200-145.5 
million years BP, see Table 1), limnic sediments were deposited. The Cretaceous period 
(145.5-65.5 million years BP) is dominated by a huge transgression reaching its peak during 
upper cretaceous time when subtropical oceanic conditions prevailed. Typical deposits are 
chalk layers which can be observed at the cliff-coast of Ruegen and Mon Island. The carbo 
nate content of these layers is 90-98 %. The end of the cretaceous period is marked again by 
a huge regression. During the Palaeogen (62.5-23 million years BP), several transgressions 
and regressions took place, covering the entire southern Baltic Sea area during certain peri 
ods.