Geological trail

Down the street, lies a fountain directly carved in the rock. The stone wall located above the basin closes the entrance of an horizontal tunnel, a water pit, which was dug several metres. This drains the seepage water until the pipe. The excavated rock is a limestone, relatively hard, made up of many fragments of organisms (shells, corals ...). This rock, called molasse, allows the seepage water to flow: it is permeable (spongelike).

The cliff that dominates the Règue valley is made of limestone. It outcrops westward almost continuously, on nearly 15km until Vaugines, through Cucuron. Geologists have called this geological formation the Molasse de Cucuron. This rock is very rich in sand grains, gravel and fossil remains (scallops, oysters, corals ...). Fossils evidence the presence of a warm sea right here, about 10 million years ago.

Many pebbles cover the ground. Some are black, green, red. They share the same composition with some rocks in the Alps. They were transported to Cabrières by powerful streams: the ancestor of the Durance, 10 million years ago!Some pebbles have small holes. This is the result from the activity of marine molluscs, the Angelwings (Piddocks), which dig a hole in the rock to live in it. These bivalves live today in coastal areas.

On the roadside, the bank is hollowed out by a hole with reddened walls at the top and varnished in the lower part. This is a lime kiln which has no doubt been used for local purposes. We don't know how old it is. Several days were needed to dig this type of kiln, build a corbel arch just like the bories, and place the limestone blocks. Cooking it, around 1000 °C, required constant monitoring for about 4 days.

On the right, a track lets you follow a little escarpment which highlights the rift in the passage and marks the northern border of a line of hills. The limestone that make up these hills is as old as those of the Luberon ridges. In between, the marly rocks are more recent. These information help in the outlining of the geometry of the Luberon: an asymmetrical arch-shaped bend (anticlinal). The heart of the massive, much more gentle, has been hollowed out by erosion and forms a valley.

In these grazing areas, you can come across a patou between January and April. This big white dog is an impressive keeper. His task is not the easiest: he has to protect his flock against wolves. The patou takes his role very seriously, so no threats or shouts, keep your dogs on a leash and do not dare cross his flock! Go around it and walk quietly, the patou will sniff you and go back quietly to his task.

These foothills were heavily grazed and cultivated before the agricultural decline, the pine forest has since taken over. This sheepfold serves today as a shelter for a herd in late winter or spring. In addition to the bush clearing provided by man, this sheepfold maintains this strategic firebreak. It dates back to the 1980s and it was established on the southern slope of the massif on either side of the track and is equipped with a water point.

Here, many pebbles cover the ground. It is limestone fragments torn from the Luberon due to repeated freezing and thawing during the last cold phase of the quaternary. These deposits, called "gélifracts" are very common in the limestone mountains where they can reach up to 40m of thickness! In this quaternary period, the mountain streams have also shaped the landscape, by either deeply digging their beds or by accumulating sediments, under the influence of climatic variations.

Un arbre creux ou un gros arbre mort est un écosystème à lui tout seul, servant de gîte, de support ou de garde-manger à tout un cortège d’espèces animales (pics, chouettes, chauve-souris, coléoptères) ou végétales (mousses, lichens, champignons) qui en ont besoin dans leur cycle de vie. Certaines d’entre elles sont devenues très rares et menacées car les arbres âgés, les bois morts dépérissants ou creux, ne sont pas suffisamment conservés dans les zones gérées par l’Homme.