1. The magnificent shark from 50,000,000 years ago. The rarity of this find lies in the fact that the skin has also fossilized, thus tracing the complete profile of the shark.
Today is Easter Monday and it’s raining, no picnic, but Cri and I still know how to make the most of the weather. After having eaten magnificently at Laita in Crespadoro, we head to a place that in Cri recalls a childhood trip in search of fossils in Bolca. We are on the hilly road that leads from the province of Vicenza to the province of Verona passing through the village of Bolca, a unique place in the world, so much so that it is a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
2. An angelfish. Note the two pages that make up the fossil. These gems are obtained from a single slab of stone, opening it in the center with the chisel and with extreme skill. I imagine the heart of those who are preparing to open a similar book with the hope of finding a surprise like this inside, almost as if it were a wonderful Easter egg.We arrive in Bolca, a small hamlet in the municipality of Vestananova, and one might say: who has ever heard the name of this municipality? In the world, in fact, only Bolca is known with Pesciara and its small museum which contains jewels dating back 50 million years.
3. A notable thing is the colors of some fossils, but what makes the most impression is that most of the fossils have their mouths open, as if in a last attempt to breathe oxygen which instead has been completely absorbed by the toxic fumes caused by the algae marine.At that time here there was a tropical sea with its lagoon and due to completely natural phenomena, such as the exhalations of the lava from a volcano that descended into the sea, or much more probably, and this is also the most current thought, the fumes of rotting algae which completely removed oxygen from the lagoon, caused notable deaths of fish which settled on the seabed. Over the millennia, other deaths occurred and other dead fish settled on the seabed. They were covered by sandy sediments and other decompositions, and over millions of years all this petrified.
4. Near Pesciara, on Monte Postale, where the Cerato family mined lignite, interesting fossils of crocodiles and plants were found, even entire trees still with leaves. Please note that the background color is black, it was charcoal!. It is difficult to imagine how many of these fossils were burned in the stoves of poor farmers in the past years, who knows what they would have thought that today that coal is worth gold.The first discoveries of these fossils were made in the 1500s by miners extracting coal and other minerals. The sites are still owned by a family who continue the mining tradition of their ancestors, but with very different purposes. The first interpretations on fossils and the causes of their formation were rather varied and imaginative and certainly not scientific. The greatest discoveries have always been made on the top of a hill, so much so that, due to the quantity of finds, it was renamed Pesciara, practically a stone aquarium where fish are caught with a hammer and chisel. But you have to be extremely delicate with these tools, nature has created a grandiose stone book to leaf through in the cracks of the rocks. Once a slab has been identified and detached from the rock, it must be opened, with light and skillful touches of the chisel, to ensure that the two pages of this book open and reveal the beauty of the two faces of the fossil. You can understand all this by looking at the photos.
5. Complete trees fossilized within the Monte Postale ligniteThere are many museums in the world that exhibit fossils from Bolca, as well as in Verona, Vienna, Paris, London, Pittsburgh and many others.
6. SwordfishFor foreign friends: when you go to visit Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, (I remind you, however, that this too is a legend and that the real castles of Romeo and Juliet are located in Montecchio Maggiore, in the province of Vicenza and that the Juliet’s balcony in Verona is just an invention and that Shakespeare took his tragedy from a libretto by Luigi Da Porto from Vicenza, (crazy parochialism :)), also go and visit this museum which tells the story of 50 million years ago . It will be like you enter a library, and there you will find the stone pages of this fantastic book open.
7. Fish family Labridae*What do you think dear friends? @TravellerG @AdamGT @renata1 @Stephanie_OWL @PattyBlack @helga19 *