Museo Geologico del Monticino

Behind the Santuario del Monticino, the former gypsum quarry of Monticino is an open-air geological site with cut rock faces that expose the structure of the Apennine margin.

Why it matters

Quarrying exposed the principal geological formations of this part of the Apennine front. The regional tourism portal identifies the site as part of the Parco della Vena del Gesso Romagnola. Its gypsum is also associated with Brisighella's fortress crags, covered street and caves.

What to notice

Stepped quarry benches expose selenite and gypsum breccias in the rock mass. Extraction revealed the relationship between the gypsum body and surrounding layers, providing an open section of the regional geological sequence. The abandoned faces also show karst forms and vegetation succession, and the site lies behind the neoclassical sanctuary.

Context and history

The pit worked the gypsum of the Vena del Gesso Romagnola, the roughly 25-kilometre wall of evaporite rock thrown up around six million years ago when this region lay under a drying, salt-concentrating sea — the deposit that also supplies the stone of Brisighella's fortress and the rock of Tanaccia cave. Extraction at Monticino ceased in the late 1980s, and instead of erasing the scar the park authorities preserved it: the cut faces became an outdoor teaching site within the Parco regionale della Vena del Gesso Romagnola, established in 1994. The site's role has only grown in stature since the evaporitic karst of the northern Apennines entered the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023 as a serial natural property — a recognition in which the Vena del Gesso Romagnola is one of the component areas. The site forms part of a globally recognised karst landscape.