The Rocher de la Baleine is a stage on the Route du Temps, one of the five discovery routes of the Haute-Provence Geopark. It is the result of a series of geological episodes.
Just a few kilometers from the charming village of Saint-Geniez, the Rocher de la Baleine will stimulate your imagination and that of your children. With the sea covering the region at the end of the Jurassic period, thick layers of limestone mud were deposited on the seabed. Intense tectonic activity at the beginning of the Cretaceous led to a replay of the Durance fault, separating the Dauphiné basin to the west from a higher zone to the east. This new relief of the seabed gave rise to channels whose strong currents eroded the slopes. Fragments of rock and sediment torn off higher up are redeposited lower down or farther away when the speed of the currents decreases. These accidental re-sedimentations give rise to clusters of breccias incorporated into the more clayey Cretaceous sediments.
Much later, after the formation of the Alps and widespread emersion, erosion cleared away the softer rocks, bringing the “whale” and its breccia into relief.
