Rock shelter

On this photograph taken inside the Giant Chasm of Cabrespine in the Aude (Occitanie), two sets of concretions stand out clearly. Like personages, whose sizes and positions differ according to their respective responsibilities.

In the lower register, troubadours seem to liven up a meeting attended by various high dignitaries and representatives of the local community. This assembly takes place in the shelter of a rock cavity, once carved by an underground river, now shaped by runoff water. For what the water has eroded abruptly, the water will help to reconstruct, at least partly. Slowly, very slowly.

Indeed, tens of thousands of years will be needed to the growth of the existing concretions, to the formation of new concretions, to their junction, to their agglomerating. Into a coherent whole. Into a resistant whole. Unless of course any cataclysmic episode disrupts this fragile ecosystem during its reconstruction phase: a strong increase in the current rainy regime consecutive to the actual climate changes, major earthquakes related to the relative proximity of the Pyrenees ...