Abstract:
The Oletta cave seems to be one of the largest underground caves in Corsica. The relationship between the organisation of the deforming strata and the karstic network shows that it is a karst of structural origin which has developed above the basic level. The karstification seems old and the speleothemes have to be connected with the phenomena of the climatic break of the Quaternary. Four types of fossiliferous infillings are known. The largest one is the oldest. They express the alternation of phases of sedimentation with different sedimentary dynamics. The most often found fauna is composed of mammals and gasteropoda. At least three faunal groups emerge: an old fauna with Cynotherium sardous, Nesoleipoceros cazioti and Enhydrictis sp. that can be attributed to the Early Wurm or to the limit of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene; a middle fauna to the terminal Wurm and which is characterised here by the absence of the three above mentioned mammals and lastly, a third group where the present fauna appears with, first, it seems, Rattus and Apodemus whereas Prolagus sardus persists for a long time