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Lakes · Puy-de-DômeOutstanding
Gour de Tazenat
The Gour de Tazenat is a maar, a volcanic lake born of an explosion that occurred when magma met groundwater, at least 29,000 years ago. It marks the northern end of the Chaîne des Puys, in the commune of Charbonnières-les-Vieilles, some twenty kilometres north-west of Riom. Its name is thought to come from Gaulish, meaning "badger's den".
The crater is about 700 metres across and the lake is 66 metres deep. Its banks, wooded and steep for some fifty metres in height except to the north, reveal layers of volcanic ejecta mixed with blocks of granite torn from the bedrock by the force of the explosion. Boating is not allowed. A 2.8-kilometre path, sometimes flat, sometimes steep, runs around it.
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