La Miniera di Petrafitta: una risorsa culturale e geoturistica

Pietrafitta’s Mine is located in the southern area of Trasimeno Lake, in the Umbria region. For its cultural contents, it is an interesting geo-touristic resource. The area was dedicated to mining from the beginning of ‘900, becoming, during the years, a great economic and employment opportunity, fulfilling a primary social role for the community of the mid Nestore valley. By cultivating the lignite basins, fossil remains of vertebrates have been excavated, mainly represented by mammals. Starting from 1960, in fact, the area has become a “paleontological cultivation”, due to the sensitivity of some workers and the cooperation of the Mine managers. In 1968 several campaigns fossil excavation were initiated. These activities have been coordinated by the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Perugia, developing new techniques for the recovery of the Site. What remain are important and rich fossil records in the site of Pietrafitta and pictures taken by the writer, who had the good fortune to attend the extraordinary adventure of “hunting elephants”, describing the various stages of excavations from 1968 to 1986. The personal cultural, scientific, applied and especially human experience led to the creation of a volume that illustrates the historical memory of the Pietrafitta’s Mine: from the paleogeographic and environmental evolution of the plio-pleistocene lacustrine basin of Tavernelle/Pietrafitta to techniques for the recovery of fossils from the mine. The work done at that time led to the protection of the findings and started the foundations for the future use of the geological asset of Pietrafitta. This is an excellent “added value” to the attendance and enjoyment of places of great cultural, educational and touristic value, disseminated by means of an editorial medium. The environmental scenary that emerges from the geological/geomorphological study, by reconstructing the paleo-geographic and photographic collection of the period dedicated to the recovery of fossils, is quite significant in terms of knowledge and dissemination of scientific content of Pietrafitta and its surroundings. Knowing and disseminating, through a cultural path, the paleo-environmental value of this part of Umbria and of these places, offers an interesting opportunity for the construction of a geo-touristic route, within an area that has been conditioned by the activities of mining and that seemed to have lost its socio-cultural significance for its territory. The area of the Mine, the proximal paleo-delta of Nestore river close to Città della Pieve and its middle-distal portion with a still recognizable rich marine faune, provide an insight into the old scenary that, in addition to an undoubted scientific value, configures a landscape rich in suggestion, in line with the cultural orientation of the “Cultural Geomorphology” and the “Emotional Geography”also representing the local “memory of the Earth”. The publication of the Volume tells the geological history of the past of the Mine and the most recent events related to the recovery and conservation of the paleontological resource. It is a simple, but a significant way of communicating and disseminating the contents of Earth Sciences.