CENTER OF GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION
We are the Giant Trilobite Museum, a private space born out of the passion and legacy of Manuel Valério, a great promoter of the Arouca Geopark.
Located in one of the most important geosites in the region, the museum offers a fascinating journey into the world of palaeontology, presenting a unique collection of trilobite fossils dating back around 470 to 500 million years.
The rustic shale roofs have been harmoniously blended for two centuries with the landscape from which they were born.
However, as incredible as it may sound, on the inside of their thin layers exist true “natural photos” of the animals that inhabited the seas of 500 million years ago.
Their presence at the top of the mountains that flank the Valley of Paiva is a secret of nature and life on Earth.
It is the comprehension of this enigma that we offer you in the Museum of the Giant Trilobites (Center of Geological Interpretation of Canelas-Arouca).
Even more tempting will be to see the biggest trilobite IN THE WORLD…
THE FOSSILS OF CANELAS
The fauna in this exceptional paleontological collection includes invertebrate fossils from the Middle Ordovician, most notably trilobites, bivalves, gastropods, cephalopods, brachiopods, crinoids, cystoides, hyolithids, conularia, ostracods, graptolites and ichnofossils.
Trilobites were undoubtedly one of the most successful groups of organisms since the start of life on Earth. Their evolution was marked by numerous advances and retreats over nearly 300 million years of stratigraphic records in the history of the planet. They appeared abruptly in the Early Cambrian period (starting around 550 million years ago), becoming extinct at the end of the Permian Period (around 230 million years ago), the last period of the Palaeozoic Era. The trilobites marked the beginning and end of this important and lengthy era.
