Searching for ancient pits and voids at the Ouels Mine (Castel-Minier, France) by using geophysical methods
Résumé
A map from the early twentieth century shows the relative positions of several entrances to the Ouels mining
area, but it is not fully georeferenced. Some mines have been reported in the south-western part of the map and
the archaeological team would like to confirm these locations. To this end, a geophysical prospection campaign
was organised, which included electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and microgravimetric profiling over the
area of interest. Several anomalies were identified. Two of them, in the north, are very likely to be related to
voids (robbed area), since gravimetric and electrical anomalies are superimposed. Conversely, in the southern
part, where microgravimetric anomalies occur, there are no electrical anomalies, but cavities could be electrically
shielded by the overburden. An additional deeper ERT shows a new but small resistivity anomaly in the
upper slope, outside the area preliminarily surveyed. Although not all of the gravimetric anomalies are confirmed
by the ERT, the geophysics ultimately proved very effective in supporting at least some archaeological targets in
the northern part of the prospect.