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Jean-Michel Mazin has dedicated 25 years of his career to the Pterosaurs Beach / Photo DDM Marc Salvet
Jean-Michel Mazin, former research director at the CNRS, devoted 25 years of his career to the Pterosaur Beach in Crayssac. A unique site in France and beyond, accessible to the public
"My pbadion for this site lasts since 1994. From near and far, I work on this site, it's the heart stroke of my career" , launches Jean-Michel Mazin. The former university then worked in Poitiers. He came to Crayssac in the late 1980s, was seduced by the site and invested himself in it. "Gérard Lafaurie, amateur paleontologist and geology enthusiast, had just discovered the site of the Pterosaur Beach; he challenged us. We have discovered extraordinary things. The owner Antoine Pereira gave us the site. The Pterosaur Beach has become a world scientific reference. "
In 1994, with the help of the CNRS, the university, the department, the community of Catus communes, excavations were undertaken by volunteers, students. In 2001, they were provisionally arrested. "We created an badociation, we asked elected officials to help us preserve the site, it has worked incredibly well, adds Jean-Michel Mazin. At the end of the decade, a building was built. In 2010, the Grand Cahors took over the case, and today, a building is visitable, two scientific mediators make visits, an exhibition is in preparation for the autumn. "
A pterosaur that walks under the rain, a swimming crocodile, a dinosaur that turns around … For over twenty years, the Beach has the particularity of offering moments of life dating back 150 million years. These imprints of exceptional precision can lead to real jurbadic investigations to identify the inhabitants of the time. But these are not the only clues, one must also know how to read the rocks to reconstruct the landscape of the time.
Evenings "socks"
"I note that visitors, most of the time, do not know what they will see. When they leave, the satisfaction rate is 100%, "smiles Jean-Michel Mazin.
High place of history, the Pterosaur Beach is also a place of life, shared with visitors. Thus she organizes evenings in the heart of the excavations1. "We call them socks evenings: after the traditional visit, participants have the privilege of accessing certain surfaces to look for footprints themselves. They have an instruction: they must take off their shoes. These evenings take place during the official excavations, which favors the exchange with the authorized diggers and allows the participants to discover talents of excavator of a night, in the respect of the site. "
1. Three evening socks are offered Thursdays 2, 9 and 16 August, at 9 pm. Registration required by 05 65 23 32 48. The diffusion of a film of 30 minutes in an air-conditioned room, completes the experiment.
The site is open until 4 November and proposes two to four visits by day, during the summer.
For more news : www.plageauxpterosaures.fr
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