Photo : Alpes de Haute Provence / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Grès d'Annot
The Grès d'Annot form a famous sedimentary formation of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, whose name was given by the geologist Scipion Gras in 1840. These rocks were deposited about 35 million years ago, when underwater avalanches of mud and sand filled a deep marine basin. They were then uplifted, fractured and shaped by erosion during the formation of the Alps. The outcrops now serve as a reference for geologists studying this type of deposit.
Above the village of Annot, the site covers about 150 hectares and presents itself as a chaos of great sandstone blocks of spectacular shapes, made picturesque by the many springs and vegetation growing there. Cracks in the rock shelter bats. More broadly, the formation has five great sandstone bars 70 to 80 metres thick, which outcrop remarkably between the Coulomp and Vaïre valleys.
