0132 Tidal flat, Schillig, North Sea

Tidal flat

Macro

Location

Schillig shoreline, ca. 20 km north of Wilhelmshafen, North Sea coast, Lower Saxony, Germany

Depositional facies

Tidal flat

Provenance

This sand has, like most sands in the North and the Baltic Sea, a long story. Weathering products from the Scandinavian Shield (mostly quarz-rich plutonic and metamorphic rocks) and from the the complex Mesozoic and Paleozoic geology of Central Europe were concentrated and reworked at sandy shorelines throughout the Paleogene and Neogene in northern Germany. They were covered by Quaternary glaciers, collected in periglacial streams and dune fields, and concentrated again in Holocene shorelines and dune fields during postglacial sea level rise. Many sand grains here may find themselves for the fourth or fifth time on a beach!

Composition

Almost pure quartz

Texture

Medium grained, well rounded, moderately sorted. The high degree of textural maturity may be surprising for this middle to low energetic tidal sand flat but may be explained by the close relationship to eolian dunes. Also, the sample might be contaminated with sand from artificially nourished beaches.

Description

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Bright field

Dark field

Sample number

heubeck0132

Collector

Christoph Heubeck, Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften, FU Berlin

Date of sampling

2001