Museum Karst Caves and Environment of Mt Cucco Park
The Municipality of Costacciaro realized the Museum of karst caves and environment of Mt. Cucco Park in the beautiful former Church of St. Mark (Corso Mazzini). The media used are appropriate for schools (primary, middle and high schools) as well as visitors and tourists. The Museum includes a vast hall on the ground floor, equipped with advanced technology, specifically an integrated video-computer system that allows projecting analogical and digital sources on a large screen.
On the upper floor there is a dedicated area equipped with computers using specific software to illustrate the topics below.
In addition to this, some laboratories were recently set up within the “Energy & Life” project promoted by the Municipality of Costacciaro and the Umbria Regional Government. The museum thus offers an itinerary aimed at the comprehension of the main geological features of this area between Umbria and Marche; it also indicates the paths followed by rainwater under the mountains before it arrives at the sources and sees the light again, thus supplying water to the plain. In order to provide a simplified and visually intuitive explanation of the afore-mentioned phenomena, large exhibition panels, videos and multimedia stations are widely used through a computer system which offers an outlook on the main natural landforms of the park and its numerous caves. The tour begins with a visual representation of the cross-section of the Mt. Cucco cave, where the rainwater penetrates through the limestone and descends to the Scirca spring almost 1000m below.
Other sections are dedicated to the orogeny of the area - that is the phenomena and deformations that resulted in the lifting of the whole Apennine range and, specifically, Mt. Cucco -, the origin and formation of these rocks, the description of wildlife that once populated this area and the park vegetation. The final part shows an aerial model of the area which gives visitors a general idea of the main morphology and visible landforms. To complete the tour, you can visit a documentation center specialized on karst regions with several books and documents on the history of speleological researches in the world and, in particular, those carried out at Mt. Cucco, from the past centuries to this day.