Grotte rebouchée du Taparas 2

a 6-metre slope gives access to a gallery 2 metres to 4 metres high, very eroded, whose main part pinches out after 54 metres of progression just below grotte n°1, with which it would a priori be easy to connect. a few side passages branch off around it. a slight overdeepening is visible along the whole gallery. Grotte n° 2 totals about a hundred metres of development.

a funnel-shaped opening in the floor (0.8 m x 0.8 m) gives access to a small landing where there are three possibilities: a) a constriction under the entrance that leads into a small clogged crawlway; b) from the landing a gallery of a few metres starts; c) a small earthy step immediately opens into a chamber (6 m x 3 m) 4 metres high (higher up a clogged passage opens). From there a very regular meandering gallery (about 1 metre wide by 2.5 metres high) runs for about sixty metres and ends partly filled by a rockfall. a few impenetrable crawlways open on the sides.

The deux grottes du Taparas, which in reality are only one, are separated at their end by about thirty metres by a gallery probably clogged by surface rockfalls. They develop at shallow depth, in Bartonian (Eocene) breccias and conglomerates, polished by water circulation. Ceilings and fillings in conglomerate of the “taparas” style are observed.

There is no speleothem formation except at the beginning where, over 2 metres of height and about fifteen metres of length, hydromagnesite deposits are found on former aragonites.

Water circulation certainly still passes through these cavities to a lesser extent, during rains, judging by the traces on the ground.

In these two cavities Neolithic sherds can also be observed.

Unfortunately, while talking with the earthworks company, we learned that the land was to be levelled and consequently the cavities will be filled in!