location Gorges d`Heric,Haut-Languedoc

hello,Ì´m sorry, I can´t speak french at all, so I´ll try to ask in English:

I spent my holidays in southern France this year.At Gorges d`Heric in Haut-Languedoc I couldn`t fail the aplitic or pegmatit veigns with lots of mica, schorlite,feldspatic material and very very small but very nice garnets (thought amaldine) and bluish fragments of apatite (primarely I supposed them to be beryl, but they didn`t survive a HCl bath) . Nothing really spectacular , no miaroles could be found- i was only searching on the surface while my family took a bath at the really nice river.
So my question is: does anybody know about good findings there? there is some geological literature available at the web e.g. [pedagogie.ac-montpellier.fr]
or [geologie.over-blog.fr]
but I hope to get more specific information on findings and rockhounding there.
thank you!
greetings from southern bavaria
tobias prediger

Bonjour Tobias,

If you are interested in Languedoc geology, I recommend you the book of Jean-Claude Bousquet, "Géologie du Languedoc-Roussillon", BRGM Ed.
It is available on the net, just make a search with book title and author.

Interesting citations about Héric in this book:

Page 38:
Some granites are difficult to find like the Espinouse one, above the Gorges d'Héric.

Page 44:
.. It is the same for augen gneiss that we come across in the Gorges d'Héric (Massif du Caroux), considered in the past as equivalent to Mendic granite but recently dated at - 440 millions years, which should situated it at the beginning of paleozoic era.

Not far from Gorges d'Héric, few kilometers north of Mons village, BRGM data bank point out an old mining locality, I've added to mindat.
[www.mindat.org]

I've never been there but if you will go again in this aera, it could be interesting to have a look.

Cordialement.
Jean-Marc.

The region is famous for its beautiful deep red garnets which are locally mined still today and have been since prehistoric times.


[www.mindat.org]




tobias prediger Ecrivait:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hello,Ì´m sorry, I can´t speak french at all,
> so I´ll try to ask in English:
>
> I spent my holidays in southern France this
> year.At Gorges d`Heric in Haut-Languedoc I
> couldn`t fail the aplitic or pegmatit veigns with
> lots of mica, schorlite,feldspatic material and
> very very small but very nice garnets (thought
> amaldine) and bluish fragments of apatite
> (primarely I supposed them to be beryl, but they
> didn`t survive a HCl bath) . Nothing really
> spectacular , no miaroles could be found- i was
> only searching on the surface while my family took
> a bath at the really nice river.
> So my question is: does anybody know about good
> findings there? there is some geological
> literature available at the web e.g.
> [pedagogie.ac-montpellier.fr]
> /activites.htm
> or
> [geologie.over-blog.fr]
>
> but I hope to get more specific information on
> findings and rockhounding there.
> thank you!
> greetings from southern bavaria
> tobias prediger