School trip – Landscape

 On Tuesday 2nd, November we went to Ocre de Rustrel also called the Provencal Colorado. We saw hills which have been progressively shaped by the rain. They have beautiful autumn colours: shades of red, orange and yellow. It was such a fantastic landscape, it looked like a desert. 

 Ochre colours the hills of this place. Ochre is a mixture of sand and coloured clay. 

 Then, we also saw an aqueduct in which people used to add ochre in order to be transported with water. 

 We walked on orange, red and yellow sand. 

 We went to the Bruoux mines in the afternoons. A guide taught us that ochre contains 20% of clay and 80% of sand. Inside the mines, we saw some sorts of white residues on the ceiling. It was the calcite produced by the rain water. 

 There is a groundwater table underneath the hill.

 

People must pump up the water to prevent mines from collapsing. Moreover, the mines’ temperature must never rise up above 10°C.

 3 different families dug into the hills hence the 3 different entrances. Mines were hand-dug into between 1848 and 1950. 

 On the ceiling, there are some dark marks. These were made by miners who used torches inside. You can understand how fast they could work. There are more than 50km of galleries inside the mines. A miner could dig 1 meter a day.