23 June 2017

Friday fold: Canoeing the Célé River, France

Posted by Callan Bentley

I was in southern France last week, exploring an awesome suite of caves cut into the Causses limestone plateau.

My family and I took an afternoon to paddle a canoe down 5 kilometers of the Célé River. While floating along, we spied a gentle, open fold in the limestone layers that crop out along the banks.

This low-amplitude fold is highlighted with the “horizontal” reference line of the river’s edge.

It’s a little anticline/syncline pair, a pleasing sight for a structural geologist floating through a landscape of relatively undeformed rocks…