Geography students at the University of Lorraine have at their disposal a field of study that their colleagues around the world envy them. Of course, there is no geology specialist who wants to, but there are still traces in the Toulouse landscape of a great event that one can perceive if one is interested in it a little.
Finding pebbles from the Vosges while walking on the heights of the Justice district or, in Foug, in Val-de-l’Âne, reveals that a stream having its source in the Vosges left them there before. to continue its course. However, the only river capable of such a thing is the Moselle.
Except that it does not flow towards Ecrouves and Foug, but in the other direction, towards Liverdun. And it is this particularity that geologists all over the world know: the Moselle has changed direction!
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You have to look back about 300,000 years to see our river flow quietly towards the Meuse, meandering, and join it at Pagny sur Meuse. But at the end of the Quaternary, by dint of accumulating alluvium, the river had more and more difficulty in clearing its way. She then branched off, describing a clearly visible bend in Toul, took the Terrouin valley, to find herself, finally, “captured” by the Meurthe in which she will throw herself at Pompey.
The “capture” of the Moselle by the Meurthe is not a unique phenomenon in the world but it is indeed a textbook case, a model cited as an example by all geographers.
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