A fascinating geological tour of the southern French Alps starting in Nice and finishing in Turin
Location: southern French Alps and Provence
Starting in Nice, France and ending in Turin, Italy, this unique trip will focus on the structures and deposits of the southwestern end of the Alpine orogeny, plus scenery and history. You will be collected in Nice and travel by coach to the different sites, spending two nights in each location. Your geology guides will be on the coach with you to talk you through the sites during your tour and you will be stopping for walks and tours along the way.
The southern French Alps, from Nice to Briançon, showcase diverse geology shaped by the collision of the African and Eurasian plates, resulting in a mix of sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks. The region features limestone and dolomite formations from ancient seabeds, high-grade metamorphic rocks near Briançon, and granite indicating past volcanic activity. Glacial activity has sculpted the landscape, creating U-shaped valleys and sharp peaks. Fault lines, such as the Briançonnais and Durance faults, contribute to seismic activity, while areas rich in minerals like lead and silver reflect the region's mining history. Limestone areas also exhibit karst features like caves and sinkholes. Notably, the region includes UNESCO Global Geoparks, such as the Haute-Provence Geopark.
On this trip, we will visit some of the most remarkable sites in the area including:
Your guides for this trip are Dr. Gillian Apps, Dr. Frank Peel and Dr. Marianna Jagercikova.
Marianna Jagercikova was born in Tchecoslovakia in 1985 and moved to France to study when she was 20 years old. Passionate about mountains and speleology, she studied the earth sciences at the University of Grenoble and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon. She accomplished her PhD studies in environmental science (thesis title, "Quantifying the vertical solid matter transfers in soils by a multi-isotopic approach" ) at Aix - Marseille University and her main expertise is in structural geology, petrography, geochemistry, cosmogenic nuclides and French Alps geologic history.
She is actively involved in a scientific project dating caves in Dévoluy in France in collaboration with several French universities and leads geology field trips for universities and school groups in the French Alps. Marianna is also a climber (summiting Fitz Roy in 2016) and world champion in ski mountaineering in 2023 (sprint) and combines her role as a professional athlete with her geology work and study.
Gillian Apps is now retired and a visiting research scientist with the Applied Geodynamics Laboratory (AGL) at the Bureau of Economic Geology, UT Austin, having worked with the team over the last decade. She holds an MA in Natural Sciences (Earth Sciences) from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she studied the impact of structural basin floor topography on turbidity currents and the stratigraphy of a deepwater system, the Grès d'Annot in the Alps of SE France.
During her 33-year long career in the oil and gas industry, she worked for Shell, BP and BHP, and her career spanned basin analysis through exploration to development of the Paleogene discovery Kaskida in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and production geophysics in the Northern North Sea. She is a clastic sedimentologist and stratigrapher, with expertise in deepwater reservoirs, salt-sediment interactions, and deepwater fold and thrust belts. Her current research interests focus on deepwater turbidite stratigraphy and reservoir variability in structurally active basins. Outside her work with the AGL, Gillian is co-director of Appeel Geosciences Ltd, and she teaches field classes in Haute Provence, France.
Frank Peel is a geologist with 30 years experience in oil and gas exploration and 10 years as an academic researcher. At BP, he was an explorer and structural geology specialist, focusing on structurally complex basins including the UK North Sea, Iraq, the Gulf of Mexico, China and Vietnam. At BHP, he was hired as a technical structural specialist, working basins, prospects and developments across the world, including the GoM, West Africa, Trinidad, Pakistan and Australia. In 2006, Frank bacame Chief Geologist at BHPB, responsible for prospect integrity and for ensuring the consistency of risk and volume assessment across the global company.
In 2013, Frank joined the research team at the National Oceanography Institute in Southampton, UK. In 2016, he became a senior research scientist at the Applied Geodynamics Laboratory in the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has focused on research into salt-related geology, with focus on salt tectonics, salt-sediment interactions, the regional geology of the Gulf of Mexico and Iran salt basins, and the processes of deposition of giant salt deposits.
They will be with you for the duration of the trip and sharing their expertise and insights into this magnificent and varied geological terrain over the course of the trip.
You need to be a member the Association for Women Geoscientists to join this trip so a passion for geology is a pre-requisite! Whilst some of the sites are accessible by coach, others involve walking and hiking in the mountains to access the sites. You will need a moderate level of fitness and co-ordination to walk on mountain paths to fully enjoy and experience everything on offer during this trip.
You need to get to Nice where you are booked into a hotel near the airport for the first night. You will finish the trip at Turin airport where you will need to plan your onwards journey from.
