Monts de Châlus
| Monts de Châlus | |
|---|---|
 Monts de Châlus in the Massif Central |
|
 The heights around Courbefy from the northeast |
|
| Highest peak | Sommet de Courbefy ( 557 m ) |
| location | Haute-Vienne , Dordogne (central France ) |
| part of | Massif Central |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 36 ' N , 1 ° 3' E |
| rock | mostly granite |
| Age of the rock | around 300 million years |
| surface | about 200 km² |
The massif of the Monts de Châlus is located on the northwest edge of the French massif central in the southwest of the Haute-Vienne department and in the extreme northeast of the Dordogne department .
geography
The Monts de Châlus, sometimes also referred to as the Massif des Cars , together with the Monts de Blond further north, represent the first elevations on the northwestern edge of the Massif Central in general and the Monts du Limousin in particular. They surround the name-giving municipality of Châlus ( Nouvelle-Aquitaine region ) in the south-west of the Haute-Vienne department . In the south they just touch the Dordogne department. The elevations tower a good 200 meters above the Plateau du Limousin (Limousin plateau) and are visible from afar, especially from the urban agglomeration of Limoges .
The Monts de Châlus are located around 30 kilometers southwest of Limoges. In their highest elevations, they cover a distance of about 15 kilometers from east to west, but take up 30 to 35 kilometers in their entirety. Its north-south extension is a good 6 kilometers.
Strictly speaking, the Monts de Châlus are not a coherent mountain range, but rather a series of wooded ridges that reach their highest altitude at 557 meters on the Sommet de Courbefy in the Forêt de Vieillecour . This is followed by the summit in Forêt de Lastours at 554 meters and the summit in Forêt des Cars at 544 meters . Other main peaks are the Puyconnieux and the Touquet de la Garde .
The Monts de Châlus find their continuation to the east in the Monts de Fayat , with which they form the southwestern edge of the Plateau du Limousin.
Hydrography
The Monts de Châlus are the watershed of three catchment areas : the Loire basin in the north, the Charente basin in the west and the Dordogne basin in the south. These three basins meet in the municipality of Bussière-Galant .
Basin of the Loire
The Aixette , a left tributary of the Vienne , rises in the municipality of Bussière-Galant and then flows off to the north. Numerous carbon dioxide-containing spring waters flow into them.
Charente basin
The Monts de Châlus are located on the eastern edge of the Charente basin. The Tardoire , part of the Charente river system, arises in the Massif des Cars at an altitude of 430 meters and crosses the municipality of Châlus on its course to the west. The bandiat , which flows off to the southwest, has its source in the municipality of La Chapelle-Montbrandeix not far from Châlus and rises southwest of the Puy Chauvet at an altitude of 443 meters.
Dordogne basin
The Dronne swells at an altitude of 500 meters not far from Brumas (Bussière-Galant municipality) on the south side of the Massif des Cars and drains to the southwest.
geology
The Monts de Châlus lie entirely on the Variscan crystalline basement of the northwestern Massif Central . Structurally, they share in three zones:
- the parautochthonous Saint-Mathieu-Dom in the west
- the lower gneiss cover of the Limousin in the center
- the upper gneiss cover in the east.
The rocks range from mica slate to gneiss and granites . The structural design is quite complex, but in a simplified way it can be stated that the lower gneiss cover was pushed towards the west onto the parautochthon and was then crossed over by the upper gneiss cover. The 438 meter high Puy Haut near Saint-Mathieu , on which the Saint-Mathieu leukogranite intrudes into the structurally deepest parautochthonous mica slate unit, is an example of the parautochthon . The 498 meter high Puyconnieux further southeast near Dournazac already consists of eye gneiss of the lower gneiss cover. In its central saddle around Châlus, the lower gneiss cover is built up mainly from paragneiss and leptynites (for example on the 518 meter high Touquet). These rocks are intruded in the southeast in the Forêt de Vieillecour by the calcareous Saint-Nicolas-Courbefy granite , which at 557 meters is the highest point in the Monts de Châlus. To the north of this intrusion, the upper gneiss cover already appears, into which the Monzonite granites from Les Cars and Nexon penetrated towards the end of the Upper Carboniferous .
history
In the Middle Ages , the Monts de Châlus were the border area between the possessions of the Vice Counts of Limoges in the north and the lands of the Dukes of Aquitaine in the south. The latter went to the English kings via Eleanor of Aquitaine . The Monts de Châlus therefore had a high strategic value and represented a natural border between the Kingdom of France and the kingdom of the House of Plantagenêt . This also explains the death of Richard the Lionheart in Châlus in 1199.
The noble family of De Maulmont came from the Monts de Châlus.
In the 19th century, the history of the Monts de Châlus - essentially congruent with the Pays des Feuillardiers - was closely linked to the Feuillardiers , who, together with agriculture, were the most important economic sector in this region.
administration
After the Monts de Châlus, the Communauté de communes des Monts de Châlus was named, which was made up of the municipalities Bussière-Galant, Les Cars, Châlus, Dournazac, Flavignac , Lavignac and Pageas . On January 1, 2017, this merged with the Communauté de communes du Pays de Nexon to form the Communauté de communes Pays de Nexon-Monts de Châlus .
Municipalities in the Monts de Châlus
The following is a list of the municipalities in the Monts de Châlus, sorted according to their maximum altitude:
- Bussière-Galant (557 m)
- Rilhac-Lastours (554 m)
- Les Cars (544 m)
- Pageas (520 m)
- Dournazac (498 m)
- Saint-Hilaire-les-Places (492 m)
- Saint-Pierre-de-Frugie - Dordogne (491 m)
- La Chapelle-Montbrandeix (482 m)
- Cussac (476 m)
- Marval (476 m)
- Champagnac-la-Rivière (473 m)
- Firbeix - Dordogne (451 m)
- Châlus (444 m)
- Saint-Mathieu (438 m)
- La Coquille (432 m)
- Ladignac-le-Long (430 m)
- Saint-Priest-les-Fougères - Dordogne (411 m)
- Flavignac (410 m)
- Champsac (399 m)
- Mialet - Dordogne (391 m)
- Pensol (382 m)
See also
literature
- Bernard Briand and others: Châlus . In: Carte géologique de la France at 1/50 000 . tape XIX-32 . BRGM.