Elbe-Urstromtal

As Elbe river valley is called the valley of the same today at a length of about 300 kilometers between the Saxony-Anhalt town of Genthin to the estuary at Cuxhaven. The glacial valley created by the height of the Weichsel ice age when the glaciers began to melt.

History

The Elbe river valley was probably built between the coldest section of the Weichsel ice age about 22000-18000 years ago and the end of glaciation in northern Germany about 14,500 years ago.

At this time, the glaciers melted and picked their way to the lowermost points. The Elbe river valley took on the melt water and led it into the North Sea, which was at that time up to 120 m below the present level. The former shoreline was about 600 km to the north.

The Elbe river valley took successively on the meltwater of three glacial valleys Glogau - Baruth glacial valley, the Warsaw-Berlin glacial valley and Thorn- Eberswalde glacial valley and led them in the direction of the North Sea basin.

Course

The course of the Elbe glacial valley proved to be nearly as how the course of the present river Elbe is formed. For the Elbe river valley is - in contrast to other glacial valleys - neither dried nor sands, but will go through the same power, which has its source in the Czech Giant Mountains.

In particular, in the low - or Unterelbe the former course of the Urstroms is easy to recognize. For example, by Hamburg -Bergedorf to Geesthacht an up to 50 meters high Geesthang remained, which constituted the former shore. Likewise, today's bank of Elbvororte is identical to that of Urstroms.

• Glacial valley
• Elbe
• Geography (Schleswig -Holstein)
• Geography (Hamburg)
• Geography (Lower Saxony)
• Geography (Brandenburg)
• Valley in Saxony -Anhalt
• Tal in Europe