The Traversella Mining Site as Piemonte Geosite

The Traversella mining area, nearly 60 km North of Torino, was, together with Brosso, a very important mining district for iron exploitation. The Traversella ore deposit was exploited from late Medieval Age up to the middle XX century. It is a typical skarn deposit at the contact between a dioritic body and preexisting metamorphic host rocks, which represents the only exploited skarn-type mineralization in the Alps. The iron ore mineral, exploited from different orebodies, was primarily magnetite. After the beginning of XX century, the extraction involved also pyrite and chalcopyrite, used mainly for the production of sulfuric acid. The mine, after some interruptions and re-openings, was officially closed in 1971, due to the high exploitation costs and the competition of the foreign iron ore deposits. The present research aims to emphasize the extraordinary importance of this mining site both from a scientific and a historical point of view, by also examining the exploitation and ore processing methods and the amount of production during the last three centuries, and highlighting how these activities contributed to the industrial development of the surrounding area and of the whole Piemonte Region. It aims also at illustrating the sociological and environmental impact of mining activities at regional level, highlighting the importance of the site from a geotouristic point of view, through the cultural exploitation of the mining site remains, the development and upgrade of the already existing mining museum, and the organization of geotouristic itineraries.