MuMAB – Ancient Sea and Biodiversity Museum

The new MuMAB – Ancient Sea and Biodiversity Museum that rises in the area of the Stirone and Piacenziano Park, at Podere Millepioppi, is managed in cooperation with the Parks of the Duchy management entity with social and cultural purposes.
The complex is now the most important access to the park since hosts and brings together in a modern and appealing shape the contents of both the “Ancient Sea” Museum once at the Congress Palace in Salsomaggiore, and the Naturalistic Museum once located in Scipione Ponte.

The new museum

The new museum consists of two parts.

The “Geopaleontological” Section

This section preserves one of the richest and most scientifically interesting paleontological heritage recovered from the Po River basin.
The finds are the results of long researches and excavations into the Stirone creek led by Raffaele Quarantelli (1930 – 2004) and others paleontologist from Salsomaggiore in 1960. In that period the strong erosion, operated by the creek waters, brought to light sediments so rich of fossil records to interest not only local people, but also the international scientific world.

The richness of this heritage and the uniqueness of the Stirone river like a real open-air museum led to the creation of the Stirone Regional Fluvial Park. The visit to the Museum allows to discover the evolution processes of the Po river basin birth and of the period between Medium Miocene (about 14 millions years ago) and the Medium Pleistocene (500.000 years ago). The visitor is projected in a distant world when the “ancient sea” used to cover our land.

An appealing design, also translated in English, explains the phases and the discoveries while an interactive video station allows the visitors to travel through geological eras.

Lost biodiversity

The path proceeds with the section dedicated to the “lost biodiversity”, where stands out for completeness and scientific interest the only example in the world of the whale “Plesiobalaenoptera Quarantellii” recovered in 1985 when the erosion of the Stirone river brought to light this almost intact skeleton from the beginning of the Tortonian stage (10-11 million of years ago).

Immersive room

The suggestive “immersive room” projects the visitor in the wrapping and silent atmosphere of the underwater world. It preserves the skeleton of the whale “Matilde”. The shark’ teeth between her vertebrae suggest that the whale was attacked by one or more sharks. The reproduction of a big example of a shark and a video show how the death of the cetacean starts food mechanisms and explain the food chain.

Another interactive station leads in more recent times and tells about the “marine biodiversity of now and then” thanks to a touchscreen monitor the user can choose different insights activating the lighting of a find in a case and a wall video-tale.

The biological section

The history of the land continues until when the retiring of the sea waters permits the Po plain’s birth and the arrival of the men: the traces of the human presence in this land conduct us to nowadays and tell about how
the thermal saline waters which are one of the most important richness of Salsomaggiore, spring from that ancient sea of the Po valley, that now stands under our feet.

Only few meters divide the new building and the “Biological Section” of the museum set up inside the ex stall of the farmhouse of the Podere Millepioppi. A section dedicated to the “present times” allow us to understand and appreciate how the past times had shaped also the present environment and its dedicated fluvial habitat determined the rich biodiversity.

Naturalistic diorama, illustrated panels and exhibit show us the richness of the biological variety of the Park and make us understand the needs of protection and conservation.

Gallery