Causses du Quercy Regional Natural Park
Landscapes Causses du Quercy Regional Natural Park
Running along the bottom of the valleys, water defines a fertile, cultivated strip of land. However, on the causse, it disappears and gives way to soil covered with dry meadows and a rich flora.
The thick slab of limestone deposited by the Jurassic sea forms the base of the Causses. This dry, stony plateau covered with dry meadows and young oak trees is the most symbolic landscape of the Regional Natural Park. It is crisscrossed by the deep, green valleys of the Lot, Célé and Dordogne, outlined by the line of their luminous cliffs, as well as by the Vers valley, the Ouysse and Alzou gorges, and numerous dry valleys or coombs.
This limestone subsoil evolves in the east where it touches the Massif Central into limestone clays and marls providing the hedged, green landscapes that are typical of the Limargue.
In the southwest, it comes into contact with the Garonne basin in the Quercy Blanc, in the clayey limestone subsoil of the lake, resulting in more clayey-calcareous soils: the relief is arranged into fertile, parallel valleys separated by arid, limestone mountains.
