Eider Canal conservation areas. Eider Canal The Eider Canal (also called the Schleswig-Holstein Canal) was an artificial waterway in southern Denmark (later northern Germany) which connected the North Sea with the Baltic Sea by way of the rivers Eider and Levensau. Constructed between 1777 and 1784, the Eider Canal was built to create a path for ships entering and exiting the Baltic that was shorter and less storm-prone than navigating around the Jutland peninsula. In the 1880s the canal was replaced by the enlarged Kiel Canal, which includes some of the Eider Canal's watercourse. The canal's watercourse followed the border between the
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