Rotes Kliff

About 120,000 years ago, glaciers of the Saale glaciation deposited thick, unsorted rock debris in the region of the present-day island of Sylt.

Even in the 19th century, geologists suspected there was a geological connexion between Sylt and Heligoland, whose rocks have a similar coloration but are considerably older and have a different genesis.

The rocks that break off the Rotes Kliff - such as flint, rhomb porphyry or Rapakivi granite - still enable an accurate determination of their origin to be made.

Since the end of the 1970s, coastal defence measures have been taken, however, in the shape of extensive sand replenishment of the entire west beach of the island and this has proved an important protection against the loss of land.

However this has also resulted in the Rotes Kliff in the municipality of Wenningstedt becoming largely invisible from the sea, because it is now hidden behind beach grass-covered sand dunes.