In the field-of-view of the stele you can see the wine-growing towns Winkel, Oestrich and, further away, Hattenheim. In addition to the current “river islands“ Winkeler Aue and Mariannenaue, you can also see re-attached islands as well as various constructions, jetties, for ensuring navigability of the river.

Bars are the youngest feature of our landscape. During the last ice age the Rhine flowed between the Rheinhessen Plateau and the Taunus Mountains over a kilometre wide plain, the so-called floodplain. Frost weathering produced huge amounts of rock debris. However, the ice age stream did not have the power to transport all the debris away and so deposited thick gravel gravel beds across the floodplain forming what is known as a fill terrace.

During the current warm period, which began around 10,000 years ago, the velocity of the rivers diminished and consequently their load carrying capacity. As a result, the rivers deposited finer sediments blanketing the fill terrace.

Only the current channel of the Rhine is carved into the old fill terrace.

This has to do with the Taunus-Hunsrück-Threshhold. Here the Rhine is forced to flow through the narrow gap known as the Binger Loch.

The velocity of the Rhine is reduced upstream of the Binger Loch and the river flows in a much wider channel.

However, since the depth of the channel is not uniform, so the velocity of the river changes, causing sediment to be deposited. Sandbars that were not removed by ensuing floods, gradually grew above the floodwater level and formed point bars. The sands were covered by fine-grained flood deposits.  

As a consequence of the Rhine Shipping Act of 1831, the river was made navigable by straightening the channel. A wild river is constantly changing its channel and gradually becomes shallower. For the Rhine to be made navigable for commercial ships it was important to secure an adequate draft depth for ships especially when water levels are low.

The Rhine was canalised by protecting the banks. In some areas, the channel width was restricted by forcing the river to flow past a point bar in a single channel. This effectively attached the bar to the adjacent riverbank. A system of “Rhine Corrections” was introduced consisting of jetties parallel to the flow direction and cross dikes. Both these constructions lift the water level by restricting channel width.