The Fontaine de Vaucluse () is a

karst spring A karst spring or karstic spring is a spring (outflow of groundwater) that is part of a karst hydrological system. Description Because of their often conical or inverted bowl shape, karst springs are also known in German-speaking lands as a ''To ...

in the

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse Fontaine-de-Vaucluse (; oc, La Fònt de Vauclusa or simply ) is a commune in the southeastern French department of Vaucluse. In 2018, it had a population of 585. Its name comes from the spring of the same name; the name Vaucluse itself comes fro ...

, France. It is the largest karst spring in

metropolitan France Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the Europea ...

by flow and fifth largest in the world, with annual output of of water. The spring is the prime example in hydrogeology of a "Vaucluse spring". It is the source of the

Sorgue The Sorgue is a river in Southeastern France lying between the foothills of the Alps and the Rhône. It is long. Its source is near the town of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Vaucluse department. It is the biggest spring in France and the fifth bigges ...

Geography

Location

The Fontaine de Vaucluse is in the commune of

in the department of

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; oc, Vauclusa, label= Provençal or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.

Origin of the name

The village in which the spring is located was called "''Vallis Clausa''" ("closed valley") in Latin because of its topographical position. This in time became "Vaucluse", from which the spring takes its name. The name in the

Provençal dialect Provençal (, , ; french: provençal , ; oc, provençau or ) is a Romance language, either considered as a variety of Occitan or a separate language, spoken by people in Provence and parts of Drôme. Historically, the term Provençal has bee ...

is "Fònt de Vauclusa", the spring of the closed valley. The word ''font'' has two meanings in Provençal, "fountain" and "spring". Here it designates a spring and not a fountain.

Geology

The Fontaine de Vaucluse was formed after the

Messinian salinity crisis The Messinian salinity crisis (MSC), also referred to as the Messinian event, and in its latest stage as the Lago Mare event, was a geological event during which the Mediterranean Sea went into a cycle of partial or nearly complete desiccation (dry ...

, during the latter part of the

Messinian The Messinian is in the geologic timescale the last age or uppermost stage of the Miocene. It spans the time between 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma and 5.333 ± 0.005 Ma (million years ago). It follows the Tortonian and is followed by the Zanclean, the first ...

age of the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" ...

epoch, from 5.96 to 5.33 Ma (million years ago), which caused the depth of the exsurgence. Above the spring there is a -high

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when ...

cliff with innumerable breaks and faults. This acts as a reservoir, a

karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ...

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

, in which the water circulates along the discontinuities until it meets a barrier of limestone and

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay parti ...

. The spring, which feeds the River Sorgue, is the only exit point of a underground basin, which captures waters from

Mont Ventoux Mont Ventoux (; oc, Ventor, label= Provençal ) is a mountain in the Provence region of southern France, located some northeast of Carpentras, Vaucluse. On the north side, the mountain borders the department of Drôme. At , it is the highest m ...

, the

Vaucluse Mountains The Vaucluse Mountains (French: ''Monts de Vaucluse'') are a mountain range of the French Prealps located in the departement of Vaucluse, between the Luberon Massif and Mont Ventoux Mont Ventoux (; oc, Ventor, label= Provençal ) is a mount ...

, the Albion Plateau^{( fr)} and the Lure Mountain^{( fr)}. The water of this exsurgence contains an average of of calcium carbonate, and has an annual flow of about , so the reservoir loses of limestone each year. This karstification phenomenon acting on the surface of the

impluvium The ''impluvium'' (pl. ''impluvia'') is a water-catchment pool system meant to capture rain-water flowing from the ''compluvium'', or slanted roof. Often placed "inside", instead of "outside", a building, it is a notable feature in many archite ...

, removes an annual volume of per square kilometre, which disappears after being dissolved in the water. That figure becomes more meaningful when calculations show that, in 3.5 million years, the Vaucluse Mountains, the Albion Plateau, and the Lure Mountain, will have had their thickness reduced by .

History

Brooklyn Museum - Fontaine de Vaucluse - Paul Huet

In antiquity the site was a place of ritual offerings. During various dives, particularly in 1998, the members of the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse Speleological Society (SSFV), were intrigued by the presence of many coins. Prospecting dives were made by SSFV speleologists under the direction of the Department of Underwater and Underwater Archaeological Research (DRASSM^fr). The ''Spélénaute'' submarine allowed them to work between in 2001, revealing ancient deposits of currency. A year later, during a new exploration campaign, speleologists retrieved 400 pieces of great historical value. In 2003 a new archaeological site allowed other discoveries. 1,600 pieces and objects have been recovered, dating from the 1st century BC to the middle of the 5th century AD.

Legend

Legend of the Coulobre

A legend tells that Saint Veranus, bishop of Cavaillon, rid the Sorgue of a horrible ''Drac'', a

devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

, the Coulobre^{( fr)}. The Coulobre, whose name could be derived from the Latin word '' coluber'' (snake), was a winged creature who lived in the Fontaine de Vaucluse. According to legend, she coupled with dragons who then abandoned her, forcing her to raise on her own the small black

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All te ...

s to which she gave birth. She was desperate for a new husband and a father for her children but her ugliness repulsed all suitors. According to Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, the Drac is a

Liguria it, Ligure , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

n divinity of tumultuous waters and the Coulobre owes its name to two Celto-Ligurian^{( fr)} roots: ''Kal'' (stone) and ''Briga'' (hill). This is the cliff overlooking the spring which still holds the ''Vache d'Or'', the site of an ancient pastoral religion celebrating the strength and form of water and stone. On the trail, we can see the ''Traou dou Couloubre'', symbol of the fight of Saint Veranus against the ancient religions.

Legend of the nymph

This legend recounts the story of a minstrel, Basil, who fell asleep on the way to the spring and saw a nymph appear. She led him to the edge of the spring, which opened to let them descend to a meadow strewn with supernatural flowers. The nymph showed seven diamonds to the minstrel. By lifting one of them, she made a powerful jet of water gush out. "Here," she said, "is the secret of the spring of which I am the guardian. To make it swell I remove the diamonds. With the seventh the water reaches the fig tree, which drinks only once a year." She disappeared while waking Basil.

Exploration and study

Access Fontaine de Vaucluse by JM Rosier

The first dive in heavy diving gear took place in 1879 when Nello Ottonelli ventured down to . Dr. Henri Louis Joseph Ayme^{( fr)} organized exploration of the basin and on 24 September 1938 Negri reached a depth of . It was then necessary to wait for the arrival of the scuba diving suit in 1946 when

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful Aqua-Lung, open-circuit SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). Th ...

reached , then nine years later. This is the limit of dives with air. In 1981 Claude Touloumdjian reached with an oxygen-helium mixture. Finally, in 1983,

Jochen Hasenmayer Jochen Hasenmayer (born 28 October 1941 in Pforzheim, Germany) is a German speleologist and cave diver from Birkenfeld in Baden-Württemberg, whose spectacular dives have frequently made headlines. Cave diving Hasenmayer began his cave divin ...

reached . To go even deeper and touch the bottom it would be necessary to use robots. In 1985 the Modexa 350 Mission removed the mystery about the depth of the system. The robot touched bottom at a depth of . In 1989 another robot, Spélénaute (SSFV), reached the lowest point known to date in the

siphon A siphon (from grc, σίφων, síphōn, "pipe, tube", also spelled nonetymologically syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in a ...

at a depth of . In 1997 the diver Pascal Bernabé descended to a depth of . In 2014 a virtual tour was created by the photographer Christoph Gerigk in collaboration with the Speleological Society of Fontaine de Vaucluse (SSFV) from 360° spherical panoramic views. Today, the joint efforts of geologists, hydrogeologists, hydrochemists and

speleologist Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form (speleogenesis) and change over time (speleomorphology). ...

s have made it possible to gain a better understanding of the functioning of this karst spring. Its

catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...

receives waters from Mont Ventoux, the Vaucluse Mountains, the Albion Plateau and Lure Mountain, but it excludes Bluye Mountain in the north, as well as the

Luberon The Luberon ( or ; Provençal: ''Leberon'' or ''Leberoun'' ) is a massif in central Provence in Southern France, part of the French Prealps. It has a maximum elevation of and an area of about . It is composed of three mountain ranges (from we ...

massif and the Apt

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimposed ...

in the south. The part of the reservoir that is accessible to speleologists exceeds a depth of , since it has been explored during a period of low water from several open cavities forming the karst system of the Souffleur hole of Saint-Christol, the "underground river of Albion". This system of chasms and cavities, which riddles the Albion Plateau, is one of the effects of karstification. During heavy storms, it can store around . A mathematical model indicated that, based on the greatest depth of and the surface area of the

, permanent reserves could reach . Over the course of a decade, the annual flow varies between . With an average of per second, it yields seven times more than all the drinking water distributed in the department of Vaucluse. It is the largest spring in France by volume of water released, and ranks fifth among the world's largest springs.

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vaucluse, Fontaine de Karst springs Geography of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Geography of Vaucluse