Mount Fenera

Mount Fenera bears witness to a long geological history and numerous processes. In fact, 250 million years ago, the sea came to cover areas that had previously been above water; this marine transgression is evidenced by the rocks known as ‘sandstones’, which form the sediments of a coastal plain fed by alluvial deposits from rivers flowing from the hinterland.

As the sea advanced, organisms such as sponges and corals – typical of a coral reef – began to develop; and over the millions of years that followed, as the seabed sank ever deeper, the corals, in a race against time, had to build their reefs ever higher. In a tropical climate, the remains of living organisms, composed of calcium carbonate, were deposited, forming sediments several tens of hundreds of metres thick, containing the shells of now-extinct organisms.

When the sea receded and sedimentation ceased, the rocks – formed by the compaction and transformation of the original limestone sediments – began to undergo the process that would lead to the creation of the complex network of caves, tunnels, passages and shafts that make up the karst system of Monte Fenera.

Over the thousands of years that followed, calcium (an element found in carbonate rocks) was first dissolved by the circulating waters rich in carbon dioxide, before being partially redeposited, forming the various concretions that make up the stalactites, stalagmites, columns and basins found in the mountain’s 80 caves.

During the formation of the Alpine mountain range, the rocks were uplifted and tilted towards the south, eventually forming that beautiful mountain we all know today, which rises – almost like an island – in the lower Valsesia valley: Mount Fenera.

More recent history – that of the last few hundred thousand years (the Quaternary glacial period) – has seen the presence of a variety of animals that inhabited the largest and brightest caves: the cave bear, the brown bear, the lion, the leopard, the lynx, the wolf and the fox; a unique creature also inhabited them from 300,000 years ago: Neanderthal man.

Fast-forwarding to the present day, we see that the cave’s current inhabitants are species that have adapted so well to lightless underground environments that they have lost their pigmentation, have no eyes, and have developed other sensory organs.