Kiel Canal Kiel Canal The Kiel Canal (, literally "North-[to]-Baltic Sea canal", formerly known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal) is a long freshwater canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The canal was finished in 1895, but later widened, and links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula. This not only saves time but also avoids storm-prone seas and having to pass through the Sound or Belts. Besides its two sea entrances, the Kiel Canal is linked, at Oldenbüttel, to the navigable River
Geology of the Baltic Sea are however absent in the whole Baltic area except for the southern fringes. Scientists do not agree on how the present depression the Baltic Sea occupies formed. Scholars like Voipio (1981) and Šlaiupa (1995) consider the depression to have been formed in the Cenozoic, before the Quaternary, by tectonic processes. Some others like Marks (2004) stress erosion was key to the formation of the depression. In the Cenozoic, long before the Quaternary glaciations the Baltic was the site of a large river called Eridanos. This river drained west in direction towards the North Sea. The Neogene uplift of the South