Grotte de la Neige

The cavity begins at the bottom of a doline 5 metres deep. A descending interstratal gallery, 5 metres wide and 70 centimetres high, is choked with blocks and forces one to seek the easiest passage. At 10 metres from the entrance, after a small step, the gallery becomes a fine phreatic tube. After a slight bend, a 3-metre step leads to an incision of the straight phreatic tube, which is followed to a junction presenting the finest widening of the cave at 5 metres. On the right, a descending gallery towards the West ends in a earthy fill after 30 metres at -12. On the left, a fissure at ground level absorbs the temporary flow of the gallery. On the left, the main gallery oriented to the south, 2 to 3 metres wide, descends with a narrowing after 15 metres. A succession of low and wet passages depending on the season opens into an earthy pocket followed by a fine phreatic tube 15 metres long. The tube rises slightly and becomes a fine eroded meander of 7 metres which opens into a new pocket. The passage narrows and, after a short climb, a descending flat-out crawl presents itself, whose widened floor gives onto an impassable choke into which the draught infiltrates.

The cavity is an ancient sink of the surface dry valley. From -12, traces of ancient flooding are visible. Today, the cave is only entered by a few diffuse flows in high water.

The cavity opens in the sandstones with limestone cement and the marls of the Lower Turonian. At the bottom of the right branch a coarse sandstone appears. In the left branch, a fairly pure limestone (Cenomanian ?) is visible over 15 metres. These clues seem to indicate that, in this sector, the Lower Turonian is a complex of alternating marls, sandstones and sandy limestone, locally karstified and therefore locally permeable. The terminal choke is associated with a fault marked on the geological map.