Via Geoalpina | Stage 6 Alpe La Colma - Vogogna

Between Vogogna and Premosello it is possible to follow a geological itinerary equipped with educational panels. The path offers the exceptional opportunity to "cross" the continental crust, observing rocks formed at different depths and in different periods. Along an equipped itinerary you pass from the European paleocontinent, involved in the genesis of the Alps (50 - 30 million years ago), to the African paleocontinent, which preserves rocks and structures formed about 300 million years ago; at the same time you "descend" until the contact between crust and mantle, usually located at a depth of 30-35 km, here exhumed by tectonic processes. The route, equipped with explanatory panels, goes from the castle of Vogogna up to the Fortress and then continues along the rocky cliffs overlooking the Toce plain as far as Premosello. In the westernmost part, you cross the phyllonite rocks deformed by friction along the Canavese Zone, a strip along which the alpine construction has overlapped the more ancient southern alps; a little further on you can observe the direct contact between the rocks of these two areas (Schists of Fobello and Rimella and granules of the deep crust of the Ivrea Verbano area). You can observe the pre and post-glacial morphology of the Valle del Toce from a panoramic viewpoint, located on sheepback" rocks. After seeing the pseudotachylites, indicators of ancient earthquakes, at the eastern end you reach the contact between granulites and peridotites, representative of the discontinuity of Mohorovicic (or "Moho"), that is, the crust - mantle boundary.