The Earth is a living planet animated by movements. This results in deformations, such as folds, fractures and faults like the particularly impressive one that overlooks the village of Lioux.
Location : Lioux (84)
Site type: remarquable relief, viewpoint
Parking
The Madeleine Cliff, which is 7 kilometers long and 80 meters high, is a magnificent escarpment of a fault. A fault is a fracture in the rocks with a relative displacement of one block with respect to the other along a plane called the fault plane. Movements of compression, extension, or shearing cause different types of faults: normal, reverse, and strike-slip.
The Lioux cliff highlights the presence of a normal fault oriented NE-SW within the massive and thick limestone that forms the large mass of the Monts de Vaucluse. It is a fault plane!
The age of this fault and its period of activity are between 40 and 25 million years ago!
It forms the southern boundary of the Lioux rift. In the collapsed section, more recent marly and sandy sediments have been deposited above the limestone slab. These sediments have been sheltered from erosion and have been preserved. The village, along with the hamlets of La Combe, Le Château, and Le Parrotier, were subsequently built on these softer, more favorable terrains. These are also the cultivated areas.
— Getting to the Madeleine cliff
The Madeleine Cliff can be particularly well observed from the rest area located on D60A road, beside the Lioux stream.
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