Naturalistic Section
Dedicated to Prof. Mario Garino (1887-1971), a local historian also passionate about paleontological research. The first president of the Amici del Sassello association, he was one of the founders of the museum. He left us the monumental volume "History of Sassello" which, with a wealth of writings and documents, forms a subject of research for anyone interested in local history.
One of the main natural resources of the Monte Beigua area is minerals. Of particular scientific interest, they have always been appreciated for their formation in large crystals—garnets, titanite, vesuvianite—due to the deep upheavals of the earth's crust that brought to light what geologists call the "Voltri group."
Currently in the area, now a natural park, the collection of minerals is prohibited.
The genesis of the rocks on the massif can be dated to around 150 million years ago, due to the solidification of the mass of molten minerals and gases located beneath the earth's crust.
First as a result of the earth's folding, then from the transformations undergone by pressure and high temperatures, it reached its current formation.
Numerous varieties of rocks are present in the area, including "serpentines" recognizable by their greenish color. Associated with them, having undergone the same metamorphic process, are schistose rocks or "calceschists," sediments deposited on the ancient seabed.
At the same time as the main phases of folding, there was the sedimentation of detrital materials from the dismantling of the areas, until then emerged, by the advancing sea. Thus conglomerates, marls, and sandstones emerged, still present in the "Sassello-Santa Giustina basin."
We are in the Oligocene, around 30 million years ago, of the Cenozoic or Tertiary geological era.
The sandstone, improperly called "tuff," preserves significant quantities of fossils.
Fossils, which mark the boundary between the organic and the inorganic, are nothing more than the remains of animals or plants that lived in ancient times, preserved by petrification or imprint thanks to a series of chemical, physical, and biological processes that together are called fossilization.
Their presence allowed Perrando to formulate the theory, accepted by the scientific community, that in our territory there existed an arm of the sea, sometimes marshy in nature, less than thirty meters deep—called "shallow sea"—connected by a narrow channel with high banks to the open sea
apen, which reached Santa Giustina, where there was also the mouth of a large river.
Proof of this is the finding of animal fossils mainly in the Sassello area and plant fossils in the Santa Giustina area.
The model present in the room (photo above) shows how the current Gulf of Genoa was covered by mountains (below), while the Sassello area, together with the Acqui and Alessandria areas, was bathed by the sea.
The flora of our basin at that time was a wonderful spectacle, a tropical climate with a temperature of 25/30 degrees allowed the birth and development of many plant species. About 500 different species have been found, and many of them have aroused perplexity and surprise among experts.
In fact, alongside the remains of plants that we can still find in our woods today, numerous fossils represent genera currently distributed in Central and South America and in the Asian countries of the intertropical belt.
In the estuary area: species that love humidity and high temperatures such as Artocarpus (this genus includes the "breadfruit tree"), tree ferns (Goniopteris) and giant palms, with fronds up to 100 meters high (Perrandoa, Isselia, Flabellaria, Phoenicites, etc.); in the more inland area where the tropical forest developed: Laurus, Cinnamomum, Magnolia, Sterculia, Bombax, Sapindus and an undergrowth of ferns, horsetails and lianas; in the mid-altitude area, shrub species of a less hot and more variable climate: Myrica, Acacia, Proteaceae, Rhamnaceae, etc.; in the highest area, among the woods: Quercus, Castanea, Ilex, Acer, and conifers, while in the valley bottoms Carpinus, Fagus, Ostrya, Platanus.
In the showcases of the section, ample space has been given to plant fossils (from the Perrando collection—the entire collection amounted to about 9,000 pieces—and from other recent donations).
The section is completed by fossils of corals with large, compound polyparies comparable to today's madreporic reefs and showcases of animal remains, such as lamellibranchs (bivalve mollusks typical of coastal areas), lithodomus (mollusks like the date mussel from rocky coasts), oysters with barnacles (conical-shaped crustaceans that live attached to rocks or shells), gastropods (which lived in both marine and brackish water), small crustaceans and remains of echinoderms (typically marine invertebrates such as sea urchins and starfish).
Also of interest are the Nummulites, which ancient legends likened to petrified lentils, similar to small coins (they took their name from "nummus," meaning coin in Latin), but are actually fossil remains of unicellular organisms.
For over a century, various scholars have worked on reconstructing that landscape (we too wanted to represent the environment in the drawing placed in the section), among the best known, in addition to Perrando: Issel, Squinabol, Rovereto, Principi, Lorenz, and Mastrorilli, who collaborated in setting up the section and wrote an educational guide, available for purchase at the museum, to which reference is made for further information.
The cabinet located in the section represents the bibliographic collection of the various scientific doctrines contained in the different sections and is intended as a "help" for those, students and scholars, who wish to deepen their knowledge of the topics.
