| Bournillon Cave | |
| Other Name: | Grotte de Bournillon |
| Photo Width: | thumb |
| Map: | France |
| Map Width: | 220 |
| Location: | Isère, France |
| Coords: | 45.0544°N 5.4325°W |
| Length: | 7886m (25,873feet) |
| Elevation: | 418m (1,371feet) |
| Geology: | Limestone |
The Bournillon cave (French: grotte de Bournillon) is located in the commune of Châtelus in the Isère Department of France, in the Vercors Massif. Its entrance is 105m (344feet) high, and 60m (200feet) wide, and is the largest in Europe.[1] [2] It is one of the main karst springs of Vercors, with a maximum flow rate of 80m2 per second, which feeds a hydroelectric plant.
The main passage may be followed for over a kilometre to the Salle Terminale. Two short passages lead off from here, both terminating in sumps, where the passage disappears underwater. A passage in the west wall of the entrance porch joins the main passage via a ledge after some 600 metres.[3]
After four or five months of drought the sump in the right-hand passage leading off from the Salle Terminale drains, allowing access to further passages upstream. This section is dangerous in the event of storms. The Salle des Centaures, a chamber 30m*10mm (100feet*30feetm), is followed by a bedding passage leading to another gallery: Minos Centre. The following Galerie des Champs Elyséens, some 10m (30feet) wide, splits, one branch finishing at Siphon Alpha and the other at Siphon Beta. These siphons continue towards the south-by-southwest for 500m (1,600feet) at a depth of 36m (118feet) in Siphon Beta, and for 543m (1,781feet) at a depth of 85m (279feet) in Siphon Alpha).[4]
In 1897 a team led by French caver Oscar Decombaz (1866 - 1914) explored the grotto as far as the Metro Needle where the galley becomes a siphon. In 1942 André Bourgin and Roger Pénelon found the upper gallery and the lateral gallery. Attempts to dive at the Metro Needle siphon did not achieve significant upstream penetration.[5] An exceptional drought in 1985 allowed Maurice and Franck Chiron to discover 1600m (5,200feet) of new galleries, terminating a point 95m (312feet) higher than the cave entrance, at the two siphons Alpha and Beta.[6] David Bianzani and other cave divers probed the siphons, but further upstream exploration remains.[7]
Lower in the Bournillon Gorge is the Sources de Arbois, which is the normal resurgence for the catchment area, which constitutes much of southern Vercors: the high plateau of Vercors and the Vassieux High Plateaux. When the Sources de Arbois flow in excess of 3.5m2 per second, the overflow goes into the Bournillon system. When the flow rate in the cave exceeds 40m2 per second then another overflow starts at the Grotte de la Luire, some 18km (11miles) due south in the Varnaison valley.[8] The stream from the Bournillon flows into the Bourne, which is a tributary of the Isère river, and from thence to the Rhône.
The cave developed at the base of the Urgonian limestone formation. Dating one of the stalagmites indicated that the speleothem had been formed more than 350,000 years ago. The formation of the cavity, 200m (700feet) above the Bourne Gorge, dates to 3–4 million years before the present, to the Pliocene Epoch.[5]