Discover France and Explore the Fossils & Geodiversity of Cabrières in Hérault Department
- Wayne Munday
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Sip back and discover France and explore the fossils and geodiversity of Cabrières set on the southern slopes of the Montagne Noire or Black Mountain in Hérault department that offers a compelling deep time story of geological, palaeontological and cultural heritage mixed a striking blend of Mediterranean warmth, tranquillity and natural beauty. The village lies near the fossiliferous Landeyran Formation, an Early Ordovician sequence of mudstones and siltstones dating back to the Late Floian Stage where the remarkable Cabrières Biota is preserved. These sediments, once deposited near the South Pole on the Gondwanan margin record a rare polar marine ecosystem filled with soft-bodied organisms, trilobites, cephalopods, brachiopods, and other invertebrates that thrived long before vertebrates evolved. Tectonic compression during the Variscan orogeny later folded and uplifted these Paleozoic rocks, exposing this exceptional snapshot into early marine life. Today, visitors can explore Cabrières’ rugged garrigue, its proximity to Béziers, Carcassonne, and the Mediterranean coast, and its renowned AOC Languedoc-Cabrières wines whose unique terroir is produced on fossil rich soils. As the Terres d’Hérault Geopark pursues UNESCO Global Geopark status Cabrières stands out as must-visit destination.
Located in the southern slopes of Montagne Noire or the Black Mountain range in central southern France at the southwestern end of the Massif Central crossing the border of the Tarn, Hérault and Aude departments. Cabrières is easily accessible from Béziers, Carcassonne, and the Mediterranean coast. Historically the village was colonised by the Romans in the first century BCE from whom it takes its Latin name of "Capra" meaning "goat" or "where we raise goats". Cabrières is also known for the Landeyran Formation an Early Ordovician sedimentary fine-grained dark shale dated to the Late Floian Stage the second and final stage of the Lower Ordovician Epoch. Here is preserved the Cabrières Biota whose fossilised marine organisms tell a story of an ancient polar ecosystem. Though there is no public fossil site at Cabrières, at the moment, the region is pursuing a UNESCO Global Geopark designation for the Terres d'Hérault Geopark covering an area of 2,046 km² involving 111 municipalities. Cabrières is a must-visit destination to experience a rugged landscape of fragrant garrigue scrubland of spiny shrubs like rosemary, thyme and juniper and enjoy a bottle of terroir-driven AOC Languedoc-Cabrières a red and rosé wine produced from blends from Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsault varieties of grape with a distinct Mediterranean character shaped by these fossiliferous soils on the foothills of the Montagne Noire.
This is an area with a complex geological mix of Paleozoic rocks dating from the Cambrian to Carboniferous that have been stacked, folded and transported during the Variscan orogeny. This major mountain building episode reshaped Europe during the Late Paleozoic between 370 and 290 million years ago. Spanning from the Late Devonian through the Carboniferous and into the early Permian, this tectonic event was driven by the collision of the ancient landmasses Gondwana, Laurussia, and several smaller microcontinents. Their convergence compressed and uplifted vast crustal blocks, creating a complex belt of mountains that once stretched across regions that now include France, Spain, Germany, and the British Isles.
The Landeyran Formation is a succession mudstones and siltstones and includes the Apatokephalus incisus trilobite biozone a key index fossil zone used to date these rock layers to the Late Floian Stage. During the Early Ordovician, the region that is now southern France occupied an extremely high southern latitude close to the South Pole on the margin of the supercontinent of Gondwana that incorporated present day South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica.
The Landeyran Formation is a transgressive marine sequence marking a shift from a shallower and more storm-dominated coastal environment to sediments deposited in a relatively quiet deep offshore sea environment that was calm enough to allow the preservation of delicate soft tissues. These rocks tell us more than their moment of deposition. Following the burial of these organisms the sediments containing the Cabrières Biota would be later folded and thrusted into nappes during late Paleozoic tectonic collisions. Over millions of years, erosion stripped away overlying layers of rock exposing these Ordovician fossils. The result is a remarkable situation where fossils from near the Ordovician South Pole are now found preserved within a deformed mountain belt at the heart of southern France.
The Cabrières Biota predates the evolution of vertebrates with bony skeletons and dinosaurs would not appear until the Late Triassic over 230 million years after the Cabrières sediments were deposited. The value of the Cabrières Biota lies in preserving marine invertebrates and soft-bodied organisms from a crucial stage of early animal evolution.
The Cabrières Biota preserves an extraordinary range of fossil material capturing not only mineralised skeletal remains such as shells, carapaces, and exoskeletons, but also exceptionally rare soft tissues including digestive tracts, delicate cuticles, gills, and in some cases entire bodies. These fossils occur in dense aggregates of iron oxides and hydroxides, which give a striking red, brown, and orange hue against the dark mudstone once exposed and oxidised. Such remarkable preservation from the Early Ordovician is extremely uncommon as most globally significant soft-tissue Lagerstätten like the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang date to the Cambrian. Despite the Early Ordovician marking the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, soft-bodied fossil sites from this period remain scarce, making the Cabrières Biota a rarity worldwide.
The Cabrières Biota fossil assemblage includes trilobites such as genus of Ampyx and Calymenine forms, gastropods, bivalves, long orthoconic cephalopods, brachiopods, hyoliths and cnidarians including conulariids of which a majority of species are soft-bodied and are rarely found in the fossil record.
Many of these organisms display striking similarities to modern high-latitude polar marine species suggesting an extraordinary ecological continuity spanning more than half a billion years. This was an ecosystem dominated by filter-feeding sponges and branching macroalgae supporting a predominantly small-bodied invertebrate community where predators were scarce. Interestingly, this food web closely parallels contemporary polar seas today where stable, cold waters favour dense sessile communities over complex predator-driven relationships.
The Cabrières Biota provides a rare and vivid window into Early Ordovician marine life, capturing an ancient high-latitude ecosystem that once flourished near the South Pole. Preserved within the sedimentary rocks of the Gondwanan shelf, this exceptional fossil assemblage includes both soft-bodied organisms and mineralised fauna, offering an unusually complete snapshot of biodiversity during the transition from the Cambrian to the Ordovician. The site reveals how early marine communities evolved and adapted in a cold, high-latitude environment, highlighting patterns of resilience, ecological innovation and ongoing diversification. Today, tectonic uplift and erosion have exposed these richly fossiliferous layers around Cabrières. This is certainly a great story to experience and share in the field for the future and today reflect over a glass of Languedoc-Cabrières once the region has achieved UNESCO Global Geopark designation.
