Geology of the lower Vistula region, northern Poland

Depression in the Quaternary bedrock in the Lower Vistula Region was a main route for the Scandinavian ice sheets advancing into the Polish Lowland. At the end of the Elsterian Glaciation the receding ice sheet dammed the meltwaters in the Lower Vistula Valley and in its vicinity. The Holstein sea presumably occupied the Gulf of Gdańsk as indicated by brackish deposits of this age in the Kaliningrad District. During the Eemian Interglacial an extensive sea bay existed in the Lower Vistula Region. The Lower Vistula Region is a stratotype area for the Vistulian Glaciation (Weichselian), with several ice sheet advances, also before the Last Glacial Maximum.