The Perte du Rhône (Loss of the Rhône) is a sixty-metre-deep geologic fault just upstream of

Bellegarde-sur-Valserine Bellegarde-sur-Valserine (, literally ''Bellegarde on Valserine''; frp, Bèlagouârda) is a former commune in the Ain department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 11,326. On 1 January 2019, i ...

in France, into which the

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

River used to disappear during the dry season. It marked the border between

Ain Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where ...

and

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is ...

. In 1948, the

Génissiat Dam The Génissiat Dam (French language, French: ''Barrage de Génissiat'') is a hydroelectric dam on the Rhône in France near the village of Injoux-Génissiat. Construction began in 1937, but was delayed by World War II, and the dam did not start ge ...

, designed by French architects

Albert Laprade Albert Laprade (29 November 1883 – 9 May 1978) was a French architect, perhaps best known for the Palais de la Porte Dorée. During a long career he undertook many urban renewal projects as well as major industrial and commercial works. A ski ...

and

Léon Bazin Léon-Emile Bazin (1900-1976) was a French architect. Life Léon-Emile Bazin was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1900. In 1915 he joined the firm of Henri Prost, where he met Albert Laprade and Joseph Marrast. In 1923 he enrolled in the Éco ...

, was built to the south of Bellegarde. With the construction of the dam, the Perte du Rhône was transformed into a reservoir twenty three kilometres long, from Génissiat to the Swiss border.Bellegarde-sur-Valserine (Municipality, Ain, France)
/ref> A similar feature called Pertes de la

Valserine The river Valserine () is a tributary of the Rhône that flows for from the Col de la Faucille in the Jura Mountains to its confluence with the Rhône at Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. The Valserine Valley has great charm; it includes the Pont des Pie ...

still exists in the same area.De villes en villages dans l'Ain
/ref> In 1854,

Eugène Renevier Eugène Renevier (26 March 18314 May 1906) Swiss geologist, was born at Lausanne, Switzerland, as a descendant of a noble family. After about three years of study at the polytechnical school of Stuttgart, Renevier in 1851 went to Geneva to study ...

, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...

, wrote ''Fossiles du terrain aptien de la Perte-du-Rhône'' with

François Jules Pictet de la Rive François Jules Pictet-De la Rive (27 September 180915 March 1872) was a Swiss zoologist and palaeontologist. Biography He was born in Geneva. He graduated B. Sc. at Geneva in 1829, and pursued his studies for a short time at Paris, where under ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perte Du Rhone Rhône

See also

References