Fossil Museum Meride - Triassic Park 2.0 and Triassic Aquarium

The Monte San Giorgio Fossil Museum in Meride displays fossils of animals and plants, including numerous large and small dinosaurs. Reconstructions, illustrations, 3D animations as well as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) bring visitors closer to this long-extinct world.

Monte San Giorgio in Meride is also known as the mountain of the dinosaurs. Palaeontologists have been excavating, preparing and scientifically describing the finds here since 1850. Monte San Giorgio is one of the world's most important fossil sites from the Middle Triassic, the geological period from 247 to 237 million years ago.

Triassic Park 2.0

Remodelled and extended by the Ticino architect Mario Botta, the Monte San Giorgio Fossil Museum in Meride displays fossils of animals and plants from this deposit, which has been recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site - including numerous large and small dinosaurs that once roamed this primeval sea. In the museum's new immersion room, a virtual reality experience has been created in collaboration with the SUPSI University of Applied Sciences, providing insights that could hardly be more realistic.

Looking into the Triassic Aquarium with AR

Using Occulus glasses, visitors can immerse themselves in the Triassic Sea of Monte San Giorgio 240 million years ago and marvel at the animals and environment of that time with their own eyes. In the same room, visitors can use tablets to immerse themselves in the Triassic aquarium and encounter the animals and plants of a bygone era. This augmented reality also brings prehistoric times back to life and fascinates visitors with images that come pretty close to reality.

The fossil museum also offers an audio guide for children, an educational trail for young people who can search for answers to exciting questions in the Triassic puzzle and a cartoon from the Helveticus series projected onto the big screen, which tells the fantastic, distant and current history of Monte San Giorgio.

The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 09.00-17.00 and the entrance fee is CHF 12 for adults and CHF 6 for children.

Source: Fosilienmuseum / derbund / ticinoweekend