The Flanders Banks is an array of nine sandbanks which extend off the coast of

Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...

, France, in the south of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

Geography

A short distance from Dunkirk lie the banks of Flanders, generally submerged less than five meters deep and separated by furrows ten to twenty meters deep. These sandbanks, also called sublittoral sandy sedimentary groups, are oriented from east-northeast to west-southwest and arranged parallel to the shore of the North Sea. They close the Dunkirk harbour, forcing ships to follow marked passages to enter or leave the port: the West Pass and the Zuydcoote Pass. It is to the north of the latter that the banks can be seen emerging at low tide.Article de Pierre-Jean Thumerelle in ''Guide des merveilles naturelles de la France'', Sélection du Reader's Digest, 1973, p. 220. The continental base is relatively shallow in this area and the banks were formed by tidal currents. Their formation is linked to the flow gain, that is to say that the mass of materials brought by the flow is greater than that removed by the ebb. These banks can take on the appearance of real underwater dunes formed from the accumulation of shell sand, called hydraulic dunes, rising around twenty meters above the seabed.

Environment

The Flanders banks are integrated into the perimeter of the Natura 2000 ''Bancs de Flandres'' site which covers a vast area of 1,132 km² in the North sea off the coast of France. The banks are relatively poor in terms of biological diversity however the sandbanks are home to species characteristic of this type of formation such as the sand urchin . The area is notable for the presence of

marine mammal Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine enviro ...

s, with a sedentary population of seals and episodic populations of

grey seal The grey seal (''Halichoerus grypus'') is a large seal of the family Phocidae, which are commonly referred to as "true seals" or "earless seals". The only species classified in the genus ''Halichoerus'', it is found on both shores of the Nort ...

s and

porpoise Porpoises () are small Oceanic dolphin, dolphin-like cetaceans classified under the family Phocoenidae. Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals and Beluga whale, belugas than to the Oceanic dolphi ...

s.Fiche sur le site Natura 2000 ''Bancs de Flandres''
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References

{{Reflist Dunkirk Geography of Nord (French department)