Come and visit these places, the local territory as well as the fossil Museum, they will allow you to discover a fascinating lost world dating over 200 millions years ago.
Monte San Giorgio is one of the most important fossil deposit in the world, for the Middle Triassic, a geological period which took place between 247 and 236 millions of years ago. The fossils coming from this mountain are known for their variety and their exceptional good conservation, they have been excavated and analysed by Swiss and Italian palaeontologists from 1850.
The international recognition of this classical fossil locality was strengthened by its inscription to the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 for the Swiss side and in 2010 for the Italian territory.

The Monte San Giorgio is located at the bottom of the Southern Alps, between Canton Ticino (Switzerland) and the regions of Monte Pravello and Monte Orsa in Province of Varese (Italy). Surrounded by the two southern branches of the Lake Lugano, the mountain reaches its maximum height at 1097 m on Swiss territory.

Monte San Giorgio is to be counted among the world's most important deposits of marine fossils of the Middle Triassic (247–235 million years ago). Unlike the other famous deposits – which generally represent a unique fossiliferous level attributed to a precise period in geological history – Monte San Giorgio shows at least five different levels, each of which can contain more than one fossil association. This peculiar aspect allows the evolutionary study, over several million years, of specific groups of organisms assigned to the same environment.

From these five levels more than 20’000 fossils have so far been extracted. Overall, there are about 25 species of reptiles, 50 species of fishes, over 100 species of invertebrates besides various species of vegetable, particularly conifers.

Link to the official website