Multi-disciplinary Characterization of Sedimentary Environments on Glaciated Margins: Implications for Engineering of Offshore Windfarm Sites

The development of offshore windfarms requires an in-depth characterization of large areas that typically have experienced a complex geological history affected by glacial-interglacial cycles as well as sea-level fluctuations. Advanced geo-data integration allows the definition of the Quaternary stratigraphic soil units and their associated depositional environments, which is required to create a more robust and potentially predictive ground model that can complement or replace some datatypes under certain conditions. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative integration to characterize the sedimentary environments for two windfarm sites in the Southern Baltic Sea. We discuss the extent of subglacial tills across the development site and the origin of different vintages of channel systems, and investigate the similarity between lacustrine deposits occurring at different stratigraphic levels, and the homogeneity of outwash sedimentation.