Discover France and Explore the Fossils and Geodiversity of Angeac-Charente in Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Wayne Munday
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
Sip back and discover France as you explore the Angeac-Charente Bonebed near Angoulême in Nouvelle-Aquitaine a fossil site that reveals a wetland ecosystem from during the Berriasian Stage the first major division of the Early Cretaceous Epoch. Managed by the National Museum of Natural History, summer excavations, guided tours and hands-on workshops allow visitors to watch fossil excavation and learn how organisms decay, fossilise and are prepared for study. As the youngest site in the tightly dated Charentese Purbeckian sequence alongside the other bonebeds of Chassiron and Cherves-de-Cognac. Angeac-Charente tells a story of environmental change from the late Tithonian to Berriasian and captures the major marine regression at the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary that transformed coastal settings into continental wetlands. The bonebed sits within a former floodplain of the Aquitaine Basin where rapid burial preserved thousands of fossils from dinosaur trackways and ornithomimosaur mass-mortality remains to crocodile–turtle predator–prey interactions and rich coprolite assemblages that document a complex food web. Its location in the scenic Charente Valley is surrounded by Petite Champagne vineyards growing Ugni Blanc grapes for Cognac, Pineau des Charentes and aromatic eaux-de-vie. Angeac-Charente is a rare destination where geodiversity and viticulture overlap into must-visit destination.
The Angeac-Charente Bonebed near Angoulême in Nouvelle-Aquitaine is a nationally significant fossil site preserved in lignitic clays that reveals an exceptionally well preserved Early Cretaceous wetland ecosystem. Excavations led by the National Museum of Natural History combine rigorous field science with public outreach: summer guided tours, hands-on workshops and an accessible discovery platform let visitors observe fossil excavation, preparation and identification while learning about paleoecology and taphonomy or how organisms decay and become fossilised or preserved from the time of death until discovery.
Angeac-Charente represents the youngest site within the tightly dated Charentese Purbeckian sequence, a trio of fossil bonebeds that includes Chassiron and Cherves-de-Cognac that spans from the late Tithonian to Berriasian Stage across the Jurassic–Cretaceous (J/K) boundary. This succession captures the major marine regression that transformed coastal environments into continental wetlands providing an exceptional record of ecosystem change at the dawn of the Cretaceous.
Angeac-Charente Is also known for the region’s Petite Champagne cru vineyards that produce some of the finest eaux-de-vie where growers primarily cultivate Ugni Blanc also called Saint-Émilion a white grape distilled into Cognac, Pineau des Charentes and clear, unaged eaux-de-vie traditional fruit brandies prized for their aroma. This blend of geoscience discovery and viticultural heritage makes Angeac-Charente a unique terroir and compelling destination in southwestern France.
The Angeac-Charente Bonebed is exposed in gravel quarries near the UNESCO Creative City of Angoulême in the Charente department of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Encased within a lignitic or peaty clay horizon this fossil-rich deposit has exceptional preservation.
This is where once a freshwater floodplain and swamp accumulated, hosted, and then rapidly buried a community of plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. Excavations since 2010 have transformed what was once a local clay pit into a palaeoecological site yielding over 7,000 fossils and 70,000 fragments of articulated and isolated bones, fragments, coprolites, track casts and plants at the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition.
During the Berriasian Stage between about 143.1 to 137.7 million years ago, Europe existed as a warm, fragmented archipelago scattered across the western margin of the Tethys Ocean. Instead of a continuous landmass the region was divided into island uplands such as the Iberian Massif, the Massif Central and the Bohemian Massif, all surrounded by shallow epicontinental seas that covered much of what is now France, Germany, the UK, and Central Europe. High global sea levels and the proximity of southern Europe to tropical and subtropical latitudes encouraged widespread carbonate platform development along the Tethyan margin.
The Berriasian climate continued the warm greenhouse conditions of the Late Jurassic. With little to no polar ice, temperatures remained elevated across Europe. Subtropical humidity dominated some regions, while others experienced seasonally dry conditions ideal for forming soils, charophyte-rich lakes and coastal wetlands. These marine environments teemed with life. Ammonites such as Berriasella and Subthurmannia thrived in the shallow shelf seas and today serve as key biostratigraphy index fossils for identifying the Berriasian Stage. Belemnites, corals, sponges, and rudist bivalves built reefal and peri-reefal communities along the Tethyan shelf while plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, early teleost fishes, and hybodont sharks such as Parvodus celsucuspus patrolled the deeper waters.
On land, the island ecosystems of Berriasian Europe retained a distinctly Jurassic character. Conifers, cycads, bennettites, ferns and early ginkgophytes dominated the vegetation, supporting diverse dinosaur fauna across the UK, the Iberian Basin of Spain and Portugal, and intramontane basins of Central Europe. Sauropods, including both late diplodocids and early titanosaurs, shared these landscapes with allosauroid and coelurosaurian theropods, basal iguanodontians, stegosaurs, and the earliest ankylosaurs.
Freshwater habitats supported crocodiles, turtles, amphibians, and small mammals, while lagoonal settings hosted early ctenochasmatid pterosaurs. Because Europe was divided into isolated island blocks, many faunas evolved independently, creating strong regional endemism as shown in part by Angeac-Charente with its blend of widespread European lineages and genuinely local taxa.
Angeac-Charente sits within the subsiding Aquitaine Basin where fine clays and lenses of sand and conglomerate was laid down in layers on a low-energy floodplain which experienced minimal disturbance, transport or sorting by water currents after the organism's death and before final burial. This result has been a highly defined fossil assemblages where many skeletons and soft tissue elements have been preserved in three dimensions.
The fossil bed occurs within clay containing lignitic lenses, which record episodes of peat accumulation interspersed with intermittent waterlogging. The presence of freshwater unionoid bivalves and algal remains indicates that the environment was consistently freshwater, rather than influenced by marine conditions. Fossilised wood and cone fragments belong to Agathoxylon and cheirolepidiaceous conifers that also suggests that the region experienced a warm, tropical to subtropical climate.
Angeac-Charente is remarkable in scale, complexity and diversity in containing dozens of vertebrate taxa. Ornithomimosaur fossils dominate numerically and given how this assemblage is clustered suggests a catastrophic, localised mass mortality event such as flood entrapment or mass drowning. Alongside these Ornithomimosaur's are abundant sauropod fragments including an enormous 2.2 metres in length femur. Stegosaur vertebrae and plates, and rarer theropod teeth related to species of megalosauroid and tyrannosauroids are also present.
Among the most interesting stories found at Angeac-Charente is the predator – prey relationship played out between species of crocodyliforms such as species of Goniopholididae (Goniopholis), Bernissartiidae and turtles especially with the finding of a near complete turtle shell of Pleurosternon bullockii. Teeth marks on turtle carapaces displays the use of the “nutcracker” technique to feed. Goniopholis simply clamped the turtle’s shell to crush it as shown by the punctures marks, bisected pits, hook marks, drag-snags and striations.
Angeac-Charente preserves more than a hundred natural track casts including large sauropod pes impressions and an exceptional suite of multiple Deltapodus-type tracks attributed to stegosaurs that indicate a gregarious behaviour possibly showing a tendency for them to live or associate with others. These tracks along with the Ornithomimosaur assemblage is evidence that dinosaur communities in this region were social.
The coprolite or fossilised faeces which are the preserved droppings of ancient animals contains more than 3,300 specimens representing at least ten distinct morphotypes. Segmented cylindrical droppings with plant and fish remains are probably from crocodylomorphs, while ovoid herbivore pellets packed with plant fragments and fish coprolites containing scales and bone. Even termite coprolites and their borings in Agathoxylon wood show that invertebrate decomposers were actively recycling organic material within the swamp ecosystem revealing a multi-layered food web.
Angeac-Charente offers far more than an impressive display of fossils it opens up a "frozen scene" of a thriving Lower Cretaceous wetland ecosystem. Here, dinosaurs once roamed in groups, crocodiles ambushed their along muddy river channels, insects broke down fallen trees, and all of which combined to support a bustling prehistoric food web. For visitors, it’s a chance to stand where this ancient ecosystem once pulsed with life. Angeac-Charente is a must-visit experience that will not only deepen your understanding of an early Cretaceous world that played out here over 140 million years ago. There is plenty to reflect upon over a class of wine.