Drilling in the Rochechouart impact structure or how the collision of an aasteroid becomes a factor of territorial develpment 200 million years later…

The first scientific drilling campaign experienced by our national Astrobleme at the end of 2017 (astrobleme = star scar (R. S. Dietz-1947)) is both the culmination of a long period of reconnaissance (in every sense of the word) of the impact of Rochechouart, and a beginning, that of its scientific, educational, social and economic exploitation. With the cores extracted from the Rochechouart subsoil, several years of research on a national and international scale and many scientific articles are opening up for researchers already involved in the study of drilling, and even more so for those who will become interested in it following the work of the former. These are also thesis opportunities for their students in France and abroad.

These boreholes are only the first step in a larger program. The expected results will call for other, deeper drilling, and will relaunch surface studies. The programs and collaborators of the CIRIR (International Center for Research on Impacts and Rochechouart) will expand. Our Astroblème is therefore in the process of becoming this natural planetary geology-biology laboratory targeted by Philippe Lambert, a basic research tool for national and international teachers and researchers, a training and training tool for their students, a tool for making educational and restitution materials for the public. A continuous stream of research, training and dissemination of scientific culture will be established on site as well as nationally and outside our borders. The interest in these boreholes and the mobilization of the national and international scientific community, effective through the CIRIR, are proof of this and are already contributing to the influence of a little-known territory in France as well as to the national influence, starting with that of the National Nature Reserve in which the boreholes have been installed.It is necessary to transform the trial and move up a gear by obtaining broader support from the State, the Region and all the territories concerned by this heritage, and by institutionalizing both the CIRIR and the impact research in France, which will enable national researchers and their students interested in the discipline to find the necessary resources and support from their parent institutions to invest in it. The CIRIR, its national and international academic collaborators as well as the elected officials, populations and actors of the development of the territories already attached to this cause are working in this direction. The subject deserves more attention and what is currently happening in Rochechouart demonstrates this both nationally and internationally.