Tuffeau is a navy sedimentary cliff which appears in the southwest zone of the Parisian pond, Valley of the Loire … Tuffeau is constituted by rests of bodies and fragments of cliffs brought up to the sea by streams in the form of alluviums. Old of 90 million years, put down sediments underwent a collapse which, by pressure, allowed their recristallisation and their cementation. Tuffeau is the result of this slow and long transformation of the sediment in cliff by cementation of fossil particles among them. Today, exploited Tuffeau (said white Tuffeau) appears in regular and homogeneous benches on a thickness being able to go to 40 m !

    Géologie :

 Lieu d'extraction : Anjou-Touraine
Position géologique :
Ere secondaire : Crétacé supérieur
Etage: Turonien
Age : 90 millions d'années

    Pétrographie :
Quartz
Micas
Glauconie
Opale cristobalite
Minéraux argileux (smectite, illite, kaolinite)
Minéraux lourds (tourmaline, staurotide, andalousite) (6)

Here is the entrance of the stone-pit, big enough to allow the extraction of the tuffeau with machines mechanized. On the panel is registered " Entered forbidden without motive for service "

This stone-pit is not very big, some hundreds of metres of gallery at the most.

Tuffeau stone-pit

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