REGIONAL NATURAL RESERVE RUPE DI CAMPOTRERA

The ophiolitic basalt of the ancient estate of Matilde di Canossa
The Reserve includes about a dozen large masses of ophiolitic rock located around the Castle of Rossena, one of the best preserved of Matilde's many feudal castles.

The ophiolites of the Reserve are allocthomorphic masses of the ancient oceanic lithosphere from the Jurassic period, that formed on the bottom of the Ligurian-Piedmont basin, the western branch of the larger "Tetide" ocean that, 170 million years ago, separated the two supercontinents (Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south).

They are primarily basalts, characterized by the typical forms of cooled lava in pillows (pillow lavas) and subordinately of small outcroppings of basalt- and serpentinite -breccia.

The ophiolitic masses are englobed in an argillous matrix of many colors and are part of a chaotic complex from the upper Cretaceous period, stratigraphically located at the base of the Helmintoid Flysch of Mount Cassio. The basalts are characterized by an oceanic metamorphism, related to the circulation of hot fluids, that generated the formation of secondary minerals of exceptional beauty and rarity such as datolite, pumpellyite, analcime, and prehnite.


Founded: 1999
Area: 27 hectares
Altitude: 270 – 450 meters above sea level – Management: c/o Municipality of Canossa (RE), tel. 0522-878111
e-mail: riservacampotrera@comune.canossa.re.it
Internet: www.regione.emilia-romagna.it/parchi/campotrera
Municipalities involved: Canossa.