The Courel Mountains UNESCO Global Geopark (2019)
Courel Mountains Geopark includes the municipalities of Quiroga, Folgoso do Courel and Ribas de Sil, in the south of the province of Lugo, and it is one of the great natural and cultural values of Galicia (northwest of Spain). In its 578 km2 of extension, this territory includes from the valley of the river Sil in the south, where the biggest populations settle, to the mountains of O Courel in the north, where more than 50 suggestive traditional villages are hidden.
The Courel Mountains treasure a rich and varied geological heritage closely related to the use of rocks for construction, industrial minerals and other geological resources, since prehistoric times. This Geological Heritage has a marked tectonic and geomorphological character, in which the Global Geosite called “recumbent folds of the Courel Mountains” stands out at an international level.
The Municipal Geological Museum of Quiroga is one of the pillars of the Courel Mountains Geopark and is part of its network of interpretation centres, such as the Devesa da Rogueira Nature Classroom, or the Meiraos Caves Interpretation Centre, the Quiroga Ethnographic Museum and the Roman gold mining museum in Ribas de Sil. The Quiroga Museum includes the most representative geological contents of the surroundings, arranged from the oldest to the most modern
GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF QUIROGA. (THE ROOMS).
-Room 1: THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF GALICIA: the syncline of the Sierra de O Courel and the roks of the geopark.
-Room 2: PALEONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF GALICIA: The evolution of life. Fossil register on Courel Mountains Geopark.
-Room 3: THE QUATERNARY CLIMATE CHANGE ON COUREL MOUNTAINS. The footprints of the last glaciation.
-Room 4: THE FIRST HUMAN SETTLEMENTS OF GALICIA. The history of Elba “The shepherdess of Courel Mountains”.
-Room 5: ANCIENT AND RECENT MINING ON COUREL MOUNTAINS GEOPARK.