An extensive offshore sand bar field in the western Baltic Sea

In the breaker zone in southeastern Gelting Bay, east of Flensburg in north Germany, a field of up to twenty parallel relatively small-scale offshore sand bars has developed. The bars, which consist of fine- to medium-grained sand derived from till, are flat and asymmetrical and their steeper sides generally face the shore. Crests are as much as 1000 m long; wave-lengths vary from 7 m inshore to 70 m offshore, and heights correspondingly from 5 to 70 cm. The bars are formed by waves driven by northwesterly winds, and are probably destroyed during severe storms and rebuilt as they wane.