Underwater Landscapes and Implicit Geology. Marseilles and the National Calanques Park

Abstract

The implantation of the new national park in the Marseilles Calanques requires a juridical framework to protect these exceptionally attractive coastal and underwater landscapes. In order to analyze the reasons behind the spectacular nature of these submerged landscapes, it is essential to evoke the geological and climatic specificity of this coastal karst, submerged at the end of the last glaciation. The keys to understanding these formations are the lithology, the intense fracturing and intersecting of the massif determining coastal dissections and the eustatic factor. Besides these geological factors, the underwater landscape bathes in fluctuating light linked to the instability of winds and tides. The biological occupation completes the makeup of an underwater landscape specific to the Marseillse region. The Marseilless example demonstrates that underwater landscapes are the result of interlocking reasons, from the fundamental and determining geological structuration to the adaptive modalities of biological and human occupation, from the prehistoric artists of the partially submerged Cosquer cave to wrecks from the last war and Antique wrecks excavated by archaeologists.