Page 277 - Volcano and Geothermal Tourism

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park has been awarded French National years old) and volcanic bombs (rocks thrown from
Accessibility Charter status and in 2003, the a volcano).
Tourism and Disabled Persons quality label Lemptégy is a unique site in France and even
for its capacity to welcome physically and in Europe; it is an open air display which has the
mentally disabled visitors. In 2006 the site was primary objective of informing general and
also awarded this label for hearing and visually- scientific tourists of the morphology of an actual
impaired persons. Disabled visitors (15 volcano. It is a place of interest with a teaching
maximum) are met and escorted on tours of goal which attracts 120,000 people per annum.
up to five hours maximum (excluding During the summer months it is also open at
lunch). night, adding pyrotechnic displays to the daytime
2 It conducts educational tours (in partnership experience. One of the reasons why this park is of
with the Clermont-Ferrand Education interest and can compete with the much larger
Authority and Volcan Terre d’Eveil Association), and very close Vulcania is precisely that it exposes
for both disabled and able bodied school-age the anatomy of an elementary volcano of scoria
visitors. These complement self-guided tours cone type for visitors to discover. And the reason
and are supervised by a guide specialized in that this is important lies in the fact that geological
Earth sciences. They also allow for a more structure usually has to be either inferred from
interactive approach to the theme park and landforms or carried out in a landscape often
can be adapted to each school level (duration mainly covered with vegetation, which means that
75 minutes); however, there is a charge for this the points of direct observation can be rare.
service and it is accessible by reservation only Before its excavation the Puy de Lemptégy
and subject to availability. The Experiments was present in the form of a small Strombolian
Area is also available for families during cone of 50m in height at an altitude of 1019m
weekends and school holidays. above sea level, built on previous volcanic
3 The safety and navigation of the site is landforms. In spite of these modest dimensions
enhanced by the VolcanBul, an electric vehicle examination of the walls of the crater reveals a
guided by GPS. This is completely silent and complex structure. Two eruptions followed one
environmentally friendly internal transport for another here approximately 30,000 years ago: the
the park complex. first was begun, built up and subsided in the
Chaîne de Puys environment at the same time as
Lemptégy it was covered in debris by an eruption of its
Located across the main road in the middle of the immediate neighbor, the Puy de Gouttes. The
Chaîne de Puys from Vulcania, the Lemptégy second was in its turn partially buried under the
Volcanic Theme Park has been constructed out of products emitted successively by two others of its
the excavated remains of a small scoria cone. This close relatives: initially, on the southern side, by the
park allows tourists to discover history through a Puy de Côme (for more than 11,500 years) during
landscape not normally found, that of the inside of a period of icy climate which affected the
a volcano, including volcanic bombs, chimneys development of any vegetation; then, on the
and lava flows. This opportunity came about as a northern side by the Puy Chopine (for 9500
result of the post Second World War extraction of years), when climate change had allowed the
materials from the Lemptégy volcano for the reinstatement of forest cover. In all, the discovered
rebuilding of the towns of Normandy and in history of five eruptions informs the route of a
particular of the town of Rouen. The removal of visit to this Open Sky Theme Park.
scoria made it possible to view the anatomy of the On the floor of the crater visitors can observe
region as expressed in its volcanoes. During a 1.5 the products of an initial Strombolian episode
hour tour visitors are able to discover two volcanic (Lemptégy 1), whose composition is basalts and
chimneys (approximately 30,000 years old), stone trachybasalts. The site of the first chimney is a
dykes, lava flows, faults, fumerolic deposits, resistant base of lava and welded tuff (spatter-cone)
carbonized remains of forests (approximately 9500 culminating in two enormous volcanic bombs of

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