The Malacological Museum of Clays and the fossil park

Type:

Luoghi della cultura; Ente/Istituzione

Category:

Museums of natural history and natural sciences

The park is housed in a former clay quarry, abandoned in the late ’70s. In this open air deposit, extending to about 12 hectares, several geological layers of marine origin are displayed, some of which are extraordinarily rich in fossils. Very famous in the scientific Italian and foreign markets for the abundance and for the status of preservation, the quarry went through a period of neglect and was threatened to be lost during the ’80s when it became an illegal dump of waste. In the 90s the new company owner, Colacem of Gubbio, provided for its recovery reclaiming the boundaries and the bottom, planting about 8000 trees along the sloping edges. In February 1999 the works in the former quarry began, creating the Fossil Park and in the seventeenth century country house (designed to the Malacology Museum of Clays) which falls in the property to less than ten meters from the edge of the quarry. On 9th August the Malacology Museum of Clays and the Fossil Park of Lustrelle Quarry were officially created, one of the few examples in Italy and Europe of an environmental rehabilitation of an abandoned quarry for scientific-educational purposes