The Spit shore consists of a foredune (white dune) and a beach with locally occurring berm ridges and lagoons. The above-water Holocene dune ridges are built of wind-transformed marine sands (Tomczak 1995, Badiukova et al. 1996, Solovieva & Badiukova 1997). The shallow marine nearshore, the surf zone, is represented by accumulative landforms such as shoals and longshore bars.
The research area included two study sections: 1. the 55 km long stretch from the Strait of Baltiysk in the east to the village of Kąty Rybackie in the west was the object of comprehensive morphological and lithological research (Figure 1); 2. the two adjoining stretches – from Yantarny to the Strait of Baltiysk (Sambian Peninsula) and from Kąty Rybackie to the Vistula mouth (the western end of the Vistula Spit) – were studied with respect to coastal lithology only (Figure 1).