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Cascade de Moulins Marquis
The Moulin-Marquis waterfall, also called the Bournillon waterfall, is at Choranche, in Isère, in the Bournillon cirque, downstream of the Bourne gorges, on the north-west slope of the Vercors. It is described as a fall of about 400 metres, divided into three leaps, which would make it one of the tallest in France.
It flows from the Bournillon stream, whose waters join the Isère basin. Nearby, the Bournillon cave has a porch considered one of the tallest in Europe, 100 to 120 metres high depending on the measurements. This cavity, active as a Vercors resurgence, sees its floods reach up to 80 cubic metres per second, and the known network reaches nearly 7,900 metres of galleries. It formed in the Pliocene, three to four million years ago.
The site was explored as early as 1897, with the discovery of upper galleries in 1942 and 1985. A hike links the waterfall to the Bournillon porch, among limestone cliffs.
