This locality shows a mixture of several different rocks that was deposited on the basalts as seen in the previous stop. The assemblage consists of variably sized blocks of basalt, granite, limestone and chert within silty deep-sea sediment. It is interpreted as a sedimentary mélange that was overprinted by later stages of tectonic deformation.
In this locality, a large roadcut near Novella in the Balagne region exposes different lithologies than in the previous one. Here, the main lithology is composed of a fine-grained dark green rock with a scaly fabric. The green color indicates that this rock contains lots of chlorite. In addition, fine-grained purple patches in the rock are made of deep-sea sediments rich in radiolaria fossils (chert). Within this fine-grained green and purple groundmass, numerous exotic clasts are incorporated. These are centimeters to decimeters in size and consist of different rocks: We found light pinkish granite, dark basalt, blocks of dark red chert and light green limestones of xy age (indicated by xy fossils). This assemblage is interpreted as a tectono-sedimentary mélange, i.e., a mixture of rocks from different origins. The basalt blocks are derived from the oceanic basement, the granites and limestones come from the continental basement and cover sediments, respectively. The fact that such coarse blocks could be transported to the deep sea shows that there was probably a substantial morphology. After erosion and transport, all these rocks were deposited together in a fine-grained oceanic sedimentary matrix composed of immature silt and radiolarian ooze. Later, during alpine convergence, this assemblage was further mixed by tectonic shearing, which also caused the schistose fabric of the matrix and deformed the original sedimentary clasts.