Schmale Heide

The Schmale Heide (literally "Narrow Heath") is a 9.5-kilometre-long and roughly 2-kilometre-wide bar between the Baltic seaside resort of Binz and the village of Neu Mukran near Sassnitz on the German island of Rügen. It lies in the municipality of Binz and is bounded to the northwest by the lagoon of the Kleiner Jasmunder Bodden and to the east by the bay of Prorer Wiek.

The shape of the heavily segmented coastline of Rügen was the result of interplay between variations in the mean sea level and rebound processes following the last ice age, the Weichselian glaciation.

It is believed that the region of the present-day West Pomeranian Baltic Sea coast after the last ice age glacial advance (the North Rügen-East Usedom Step) has remained ice-free and largely part of the mainland for about 13,000 years. The level of the world's oceans was once lower than today due to the ice age. About 9,000 years ago, a meltwater lake, the Ancylus Lake, was formed, whose surface lay no higher than 8 metres below the present-day level (Normalnull), but after a period of about 1,000 years this drained, rapidly at times, into the world's oceans, which led to a renewed mainland phase, the Ancylus transgression. Not until 8,000 years ago – after a general rise in worldwide sea levels – did the level of water in the Baltic Sea basin climb rapidly again, by around 15 metres, after the flooding of the land bridge between Denmark and Scandinavia to form the Litorina Sea, reaching almost its present level about 5,500 years ago.

Since that time the sea level has varied by only around 1–2 metres and a process of coastal equalisation (Küstenausgleichsprozess) began that continues to the present day. In particular, the coastal cliffs of Rügen have been eroded by breakers and sea currents and the sediments dumped sand and gravel between the island cores as bars and spits.

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