Invitation to discover the nature reserves and their heritage through the example of the Cap Romain. This protected site has the particularity of being located on the seafront and showing fossil marine species, notably remarkable colonies of Jurassic sponges.
Guided tour offered by the Department of Calvados, manager of the nature reserve.
When he takes the urge to put our noses out and leave the paths randomly, who knows where our steps can lead us? Curious individuals of nature always find curious places of nature to satisfy them. Take for example the shores of the Côte de Nacre in Normandy. You walk on the dike of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the gaze captivated by the waves. Suddenly you are interrupted in your daydreams by a person who asks you if you are taking part in the visit of the Cap Romain. The Cap Romain? An archaeological site? Better than that will answer you. There are not only remains of the Roman era, but especially witnesses of a much older era. And here we go for an 1h30 visit on the theme «the stone has its history» which will surprise you in many ways. Along the cliff, feet in the sand, a strange phenomenon occurs: the hands of your watch go wild. Once stabilized, you notice that it delays 165 million years! Is it possible to read in stone as in a crystal ball? The exercise seems difficult but after some explanations your vision becomes more refined, you get closer, even closer, until you see a multitude of fossils encrusted in the stone: ornamented sea urchins quills, shells named brachiopods with various forms, pieces of star-shaped crinoids, etc. Then you have to take a step back to see a sponge reef, exceptional witness of the presence of a warm sea in the Jurassic. Other surprising witnesses take you a huge leap in time. The imagination plants a new setting composed of vast expanses populated by mammoths and woolly rhinoceros on the edge of a gigantic glacier covering the northern hemisphere. You understand then that geology is not a science reserved for an elite, but a knowledge essential to our vision of the world. The Earth is moving, changing its face, it is “alive”. The visit is already over. The guide greets you and reminds you before leaving that we must protect the witnesses of the past to improve our understanding of the world. Curiosity awakening, you leave full of questions about the place of man in the universe, but relieved of your daily worries as they seem futile to you on the scale of the great natural phenomena that surround us.