The Gournier Cave is located near Choranche in the

Vercors Massif The Vercors massif (; ) is a mountain range in eastern France consisting of rugged plateaus and mountains straddling the ''département in France, départements'' of Isère and Drôme in the French Prealps. It lies west of the Dauphiné Alps, ...

in south-eastern France. The entrance is at an altitude of at the base of a

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

on the Presles plateau. It is one of the exsurgences (points at which an underground stream reaches the surface if stream has no known surface headwaters) of the Coulmes massif, and the cave is considered by many speleologists to be the most beautiful underground river in the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

Exploration

In 1899 Decombaz visited the entrance lake by boat. In 1947, a climb over the lake by Jean Deudon gave access to a fossil gallery, which was explored by a team including André Bourgin for nearly , when two access points were discovered to the underlying river. The same team were stopped by a waterfall in 1949. The latter was climbed in 1952 by Pierre Chevalier, and the river was followed to a large chamber. In the 1960s, the Spéléo Club de la Seine found the way on, but were eventually stopped by a

sump Sump may refer to: * An infiltration basin used to manage surface runoff water and recharge underground aquifers * Sump (cave), a permanently flooded section of a cave, where an underground flow of water exits the cave into the earth such that t ...

at a height of +. March 1973, the Club Spéléo de Lyon passed the obstacle, but were stopped by a second

. In 1974, this was passed by diving, and in November 1975, from the entrance, the height of above the entrance was reached at the foot of a waterfall. In November 1976, while to pass the obstacle, three speleologists from the Rhone region, Michel Schmidt, Roland Chenevier and Daniel Trouilleux, were swept away by a

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

. The Spéléo Club de Dijon resumed the explorations in May 1981, and above the waterfall, a further of galleries were discovered reaching a height of +. In 1982 the end was reached at + . In August 1996, a

cave diver Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the search for and recovery of divers or, as in the 2018 Thai cave rescue, other ...

, Frédéric Poggia, dived the sump ''l'affluent des Parisiens'', discovering of passages. He stopped at a fifth sump. Speleologists have been digging sinkholes above the end of the cave for several years, hoping to reach the underlying passages.

Description

Within the entrance porch is a long lake, above which is the entrance to a long fossil gallery, wide, which has beautiful

stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; ; ) is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist ...

floors in places. In the floor of this passage are four entrances to the underground river. The fine river passage can be followed up waterfalls and through pools to the large Salle Chevalier. After a complex section the river rejoins the cave. The Jerome siphon can now be passed by swimming. A second sump can be avoided, and then the gallery broadens out, with a section of . The continuing passage, called the Aquagalerie, continues narrow and high, sometimes with deep water. Upstream of a waterfall the river passage continues. After the Salle des Burgondes, the gallery becomes broader, and then the passages become high and narrow, often requiring travsersing, to close down at +.

Karst Development

The cave has developed at the Urgonian-

Hauterivian The Hauterivian is, in the geologic timescale, an age in the Early Cretaceous Epoch or a stage in the Lower Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 132.6 ± 2 Ma and 125.77 (million years ago). The Hauterivian is preceded by the Valangi ...

contact. The river has dug down into the Hauterivian, and the entrance fossil gallery lies within the Urgonian. The network developed along a northeast-southwest fault. The fossil gallery was probably formed in the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58glacial episodes of Riss II and

Würm Wurm or Würm may refer to: Places * Wurm (Rur), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany * Würm (Amper), a river in Bavaria, southeastern Germany ** Würm glaciation, an Alpine ice age, named after the Bavarian river * Würm (Nagold ...

Capture

In 1997, a catchment to supply the village of Presles was considered, but another solution was found.

Image gallery

File:Galerie fossile.jpg,

Rimstone Rimstone, also called gours, is a type of speleothem (cave formation) in the form of a stone dam. Rimstone is made up of calcite and other minerals that build up in cave pools. The formation created, which looks like stairs, often extends into f ...

at the beginning of the fossil gallery. File:Dans la rivière de la grotte de Gournier.jpg, Start of the river. File:Lac de Gournier.jpg, The entrance lake to the Gournier cave. File:Dans la galerie fossile de Gournier.jpg, One of the admirable sections of the Gournier fossil gallery. File:La rivière de la grotte de Gournier.jpg, The river, made up of bodies of water and waterfalls. File:Passage en opposition au dessus de la rivière de Gournier.jpg, Progress over the river.

Notes

References

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External links

Gournier Cave

Objectif RACLETTE - Les Classiques - La Grotte Gournier
Limestone caves Landforms of Isère Caves of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes