The River

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 Armançon drains part of north-western Burgundy

Bourgogne

Burgundy is one of the 27 regions of France.The name comes from the Burgundians, an ancient Germanic people who settled in the area in early Middle-age. The region of Burgundy is both larger than the old Duchy of Burgundy and smaller than the area ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, from the modern...

 in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It rises in the département of Côte-d'Or

Côte-d'Or

Côte-d'Or is a department in the eastern part of France.- History :Côte-d'Or is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was formed from part of the former province of Burgundy.- Geography :...

 and flows into the River Yonne

Yonne River

The Yonne is a river in France, left tributary of the Seine. It is 292 km long. The river gives its name to the Yonne département. Its source is in the Nièvre département, in the Morvan hills near Château-Chinon...

 (right bank) at Migennes

Migennes

Migennes is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France....

. It rises at an altitude of about 380 metres and enters the River Yonne, 202 km downstream, at 79 metres.

The river's course downstream

It rises two kilometres north-west of Meilly-sur-Rouvres

Meilly-sur-Rouvres

Meilly-sur-Rouvres is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.-References:*...

 in the district known as the Auxois

Auxois

Originally from the Côte-d'Or and Yonne region of France, the Auxois breed is a descendant of the old Burgundian horse, dating back to the Middle Ages...

, on the lip of the saucer represented by the Paris basin

Paris Basin (geology)

The Paris Basin is one of the major geological regions of France having developed since the Triassic on a basement formed by the Variscan orogeny.-Extent:...

. It flows down the western, dip slope of the Côte d'Or

Côte d'Or (escarpment)

The Côte d'Or is a limestone escarpment in Burgundy, France that lends its name to the department which was formed around it...

 and on the margin of the Morvan

Morvan

The Morvan is a mountainous massif lying just to the west of the Côte d'Or escarpment in Burgundy, France. It is a northerly extension of the Massif Central and is of Variscan age. It is composed of granites and basalts and formed a promontory extending northwards into the Jurassic sea.-Music:The...

. Its source is on the Lower Jurassic rocks where they and the Upper Triassic are much influenced by the granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

s and volcanism

Volcanism

Volcanism is the phenomenon connected with volcanoes and volcanic activity. It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of a planet to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface....

 of the Morvan, a northward extension of the Massif Central

Massif Central

The Massif Central is an elevated region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaux....

.

The river's upper valley is used by the Canal de Bourgogne

Canal of Burgundy

The Burgundy Canal is a canal in Burgundy in central eastern France. There are two river entrances; to the north the Yonne River allows access in the town of Migennes, and in the south the Saône allows access in the town Saint-Jean-de-Losne. The construction began in 1775 and was completed in 1832...

 and the Autoroute A6

A6 autoroute (France)

The A6, also known as the Autoroute du Soleil, Sun's Motorway, , is an Autoroute in France, linking Paris to Lyon. The motorway starts at Paris's Porte d'Orléans and Porte d'Italie with two branches, numbered A6a and A6b respectively, that join south of Paris...

 but the two diverge and the river passes between them, alone towards the small town of Semur-en-Auxois

Semur-en-Auxois

Semur-en-Auxois is a commune of the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.Semur-en-Auxois has a medieval core, built on a pink granite bluff more than half-encircled by the River Armançon...

. In this part of its course the river has cut its valley down through the Jurassic rocks to the underlying granite. The Cernant joins just below Semur.

Near Buffon

Buffon, Côte-d'Or

Buffon is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.-Population:-Personalities:* Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon established ironworks there .-References:*...

, north-west of Montbard

Montbard

Montbard is a commune and subprefecture of the Côte-d'Or department in the Bourgogne region in eastern France.Montbard is a small industrial town on the river Brenne. The Forges de Buffon, ironworks established by Buffon, are located in the nearby village of Buffon...

, the canal joins it again from the Brenne valley accompanied by the Dijon

Dijon

Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....

 to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 (Gare de l'Est

Gare de l'Est

is one of the six large SNCF termini in Paris. It is in the 10th arrondissement, not far from the Gare du Nord, facing the Boulevard de Strasbourg, part of the north-south axis of Paris created by Baron Haussmann...

) railway. The Bornant enters from the left slightly lower. They all pass through forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

ed country on Middle Jurassic

Middle Jurassic

The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from 176-161 million years ago. In European lithostratigraphy, rocks of this Middle Jurassic age are called the Dogger....

 geology. Shortly after, they pass into the département of Yonne

Yonne

Yonne is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Burgundy in eastern France and its prefecture is Auxerre. Its official number is 89....

. Near the border between the départements and just below Ravières

Ravières

Ravières is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.-References:*...

, the river passes onto the Upper Jurassic where the valley bottom has accumulated Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...

 alluvium

Alluvium

Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...

. However, the Upper Jurassic rocks are available to supply the clay element of the materials for the cement

Cement

In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

 works which lie between the river and the canal between Pacy-sur-Armançon

Pacy-sur-Armançon

Pacy-sur-Armançon is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.-References:*...

 and Lézinnes

Lézinnes

Lézinnes is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.-References:*...

. Still in forested country, it passes the small town of Tonnerre

Tonnerre

Tonnerre is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.-Twin town:* Nenagh, North Tipperary, Ireland-References:*...

 and passes very briefly through the département of Aube

Aube

Aube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

 as it flows onto the lower Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 rocks, clothed in less woodland.

Just below Saint-Florentin

Saint-Florentin, Yonne

Saint-Florentin is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France.-Twin towns:Saint-Florentin is twinned with Zeltingen-Rachtig, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-References:*...

 it is crossed by the TGV

TGV

The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....

 railway from Paris to Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 and Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

. The river arrives on the Middle Cretaceous as the Créanton joins from the right, just before the river and the Canal de Bourgogne enter the River Yonne at Migennes

Migennes

Migennes is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France....

. The town is backed by the relatively treeless Upper Cretaceous chalk.

The Lower Cretaceous is comparable with the rocks of the Weald

Weald

The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...

 of southern England and the Upper Jurassic with the Oxford Clay

Oxford Clay

The Oxford Clay Formation is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay is of middle Callovian to lower Oxfordian age and comprises 2 main facies. The lower facies comprises the...

 and associated strata of the English Midlands. The middle Jurassic rocks contain more limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

s. The Upper Cretaceous is mainly chalk

Tributaries

Its principal tributaries are:

• the Rû de Bierre (right bank)
• the Ruisseau de Bornant (left bank)
• the Cernant (left bank)
• the Brenne (right bank)
• the Bornant (left bank)
• the Brionne
  Brionne
  Brionne is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Population:-Sights:The keep, built in the 11th century was one of the rare Norman squareshaped defensive keeps, reminding of British architecture. It was destroyed in the 18th century.The church Saint-Martin has a...
  
   (right bank)
• the Ruisseau de Cléon (left bank)
• the Armance (right bank)
• the Créanton (right bank)
• the Ruisseau de Larry (left bank)
• the Prée (right bank)
• the Ruisseau de Thorey (left bank)

Ru is an old or literary word for "brook".
Ruisseau is usually translated as stream. It can mean "gutter".