Valensole (French pronunciation: [valɑ̃sɔl]; Occitan: Valençòla) is a commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the southeastern Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France.

The city itself, at 595 metres above sea level, is formed by an amphitheater on a hill between the Plateau de Valensole and the valley of Notre Dame.

These powerful rivers, fed by violent climate phenomenons, transport large quantities of materials : pebbles, sand, clay, soluble limestone, taken into the depression where they accumulate to form an enormous deposit of Valensole's "poudingues", resulting from thousands of years of erosion in a karst environment.

Toward 8 Ma, the Estérel-corso-sardre mountain collapsed, isolating Corsica and Sardinia from the continent, which profoundly modified the hydrographic network.

Under the weight of this mass of materials, the terrestrial exterior sunk, that provokes movements of the deposit edge.