The Village on the Edge of the Volcano

SAN VENANZO – Three volcanoes within a few hundred meters, the renowned venanzite rock, the ancient fossil-bearing breccia. Plus a remarkable museum housing prehistoric elephant remains and saber-toothed tiger fossils. San Venanzo deserves thorough exploration. This ancient hamlet rests directly upon the rim of a volcanic crater.

The verdant hillside hosting the village, when examined closely, reveals unmistakable evidence of its volcanic origins. The profile shows symmetrical, straight flanks. The flat summit is nothing more than the ancient crater, now filled with sediments. Building foundations sit directly on porous black volcanic rock, while the houses themselves are constructed from tuff – stone formed from solidified eruption materials extracted from nearby quarries.

The Vulcanological Museum

The compact yet meticulously curated vulcanological museum of San Venanzo is delightful. Housed within a prestigious building in the historic center, it was established to provide tools for deepening understanding of the territory's geological heritage and its profound connection with the history of local inhabitants.

In the San Venanzo area, every activity reveals the intimate relationship between people and volcano. This ancient, unbreakable bond has manifested itself for many centuries. Residents have always exploited resources linked to their territory's volcanic nature. The particular soil fertility has favored agriculture: the friability allowed construction of cool cellars carved directly into the tuff beneath historic center homes, naturally utilizing this stone's especially suitable conditions for wine and food preservation.

Volcanic rock has been used since medieval times for constructing sturdy, durable millstones. Their remnants can still be observed in the ancient quarry through which the vulcanological museum's nature trail winds.

The Prehistoric Elephant Skull

Within the museum there's also a room dedicated to fossils discovered in the area, among which stands out the skull of a prehistoric elephant that lived approximately two million years ago, long before the volcanic eruptions. In those times Umbria had a warm, humid climate and was traversed from north to south by a large, highly branched body of water – Lake Tiberino. On its shores, corresponding to present-day San Venanzo, an Elephas Meridionalis specimen met its end – the European ancestor of today's elephant.

The discovery story of its petrified remains is a curious anecdote still recounted in the village: the "strange stone" apparently remained exposed on the ground for many years, just steps from the historic center, without being recognized. Eventually, having become an obstacle to activities, it was decided to move it. The unusual colors and shapes of some parts, revealed during the work, aroused interest for more detailed examination that led to the discovery.

Mount Peglia and the Bone-Bearing Breccia

Mount Peglia, a few kilometers southwest of San Venanzo, represents an important fossil deposit, many specimens of which are now displayed in the San Venanzo museum. The greatest source of these fossils is the so-called bone-bearing breccia of Peglia – an accumulation of earthy sediments filling an ancient cavern frequented by various animal species, and also by our ancestors, roughly during the time of volcanic eruptions. Discovered accidentally one hot August morning in 1955, the deposit proved extraordinarily rich. Among the most interesting fossils are remains of the saber-toothed tiger, a large feline equipped with exceptionally sized canine teeth with sharp, serrated edges. It was the fiercest predator ever to inhabit Umbria but didn't survive the last ice age. Among human artifacts, a notable quantity of lithic tools stands out – stones worked by humans for defense, hunting, and performing daily activities.

Three Volcanoes in 500 Meters

Volcanoes are nature's most powerful expressions, implicated as major culprits in mass extinctions, global climate changes, and entire civilization disappearances. They evoke terrifying images and have always fueled ancestral legends, representing mythical entrances to the underworld and gates of communication with Hades. But how much do we really know about them? The idea generally associated with volcanoes involves imposing reliefs looming over surrounding territory, with bare steep walls and craters erupting rivers of incandescent lava and clouds of burning ash. But other volcano types exist.

In Umbria, volcanic edifices like Vesuvius or Etna never existed. Rather, imagine broad, low cones or, in some cases, simple planar fissures lacking relief.

In the San Venanzo area, approximately 265,000 years ago, three such structures formed. They're about 500 meters apart from one another: the San Venanzo maar, the Pian di Celle tuff ring, and the eccentric cone of Celli. The maar is a depression – a large pit created by an extremely violent explosive eruption. At activity's end, the terrain around the crater was covered with volcanic products and had acquired the shape of a conical mound. The crater then filled with rainwater, transforming into a lake about fifteen meters deep which subsequently broke its natural banks and emptied. The sediments now filling it still preserve fossil remains of lacustrine animals and plants.

Immediately after San Venanzo's eruption ended, volcanic activity began at Pian di Celle through a crater located several tens of meters above the surrounding terrain. It was characterized by an explosive phase, producing a tuff ring around the crater, and an effusive phase in which approximately one million cubic meters of fluid lava were emitted at an estimated temperature of 1300°C. This lava flooded the territory around the small volcanic reliefs. Then, upon cooling, it formed rock with highly particular characteristics, known worldwide as venanzite. The Celli cone is defined as "eccentric" because it's not aligned with the other two, but shifted a few hundred meters eastward. It's a small crater that produced essentially explosive volcanic activity of ash and lapilli.

Information: http://parcomuseovulcanologico.com/