The famous Iron Age discovery site at Col de Flam contains a number of weapons and tools as well as various objects for adorning the person, which were used in rituals. Alongside bronze bracelets, rings and a bead, there are numerous fastening clasps for clothing made of bronze and iron. They have been dated back to 400 to 15th century B.C. according to their decorative features and shapes.

Five niches were carved in a long stone block to shell grain. The truss made of wooden poles has not been preserved. The stone trough was unearthed during building work near today's St. Anton church, where a watercourse used to flow from Rio Gardena stream (Lad. Derjon). 

Dolostone, or dolomite, or dolomitic rock, is a carbonate rock made up of the mineral dolomite - calcium-magnesium carbonate - that is secondarily derived from limestone. Although dolostones may be found in other places too, only these mountains are called the Dolomites, after the English naturalist who first identified the connection with the mineral dolomite, which a Swiss student, in turn, named after the French geologist Dolomieu.

Submarine volcanic activity enriched water with silica (SiO2), allowing organisms with siliceous skeleton (such as radiolaria and sponges) to thrive. Their remains got mixed up with the calcareous mud at the bottom of the deep basins and were later dissolved by the waters circulating into the forming rock. Yet the dissolved silica remained inside the rock, eventually concentrating as chert nodules in the limestone.

This natural asset is part of the tour "Browsing through the rocks of the Secëda mountain".

Severe erosion of rocks by streams and rivers creates gravel and pebbles that are rounded off by the swirling water. These coarse clastic deposits can also go through a natural cementation process to form a conglomerate. The different colours of the debris indicate a wide source area featuring many different types of rock. 

This natural asset is part of the tour "Browsing through the rocks of the Secëda mountain".

Gypsum rock layers originate in a natural salt flat, a very shallow marine environment in a warm, dry climate. Evaporation concentrates salts in sea water until they precipitate, starting with sulphates (gypsum is CaSO4, calcium sulphate). The white layers that can be seen from the Seceda cable car are precisely the remains of these natural salt flats. 

This natural asset is part of the tour "Browsing through the rocks of the Secëda mountain".

The sand that was formed due to the erosion of red porphyry could only be red. It covered a wide plain featuring rivers and lakes surrounded by vegetation and inhabited by primitive reptiles and amphibians at a time when the sea had not yet reached the Val Gardena area. After millions of years, the sand naturally hardened to become sandstone, a firm yet workable rock which may be carved. 

This natural asset is part of the tour "Browsing through the rocks of the Secëda mountain".

How often have you driven along a road paved with blocks of porphyry without realising that this rock was formed from the rapid cooling of lava! This mostly reddish volcanic rock in the Bolzano province makes up a thick bedrock which is the base of the sedimentary sequence. It can be seen along the motorway north of Bolzano or on the Resciesa ridge in Val Gardena. 

Bellerophon, a planispiral snail, is one of the best-known fossils of the Dolomites: it lends the Bellerophon Formation its name and bears witness to the definitive arrival of the sea at the end of the Permian period. This exhibit shows the snail together with a large Tainoceras malsineri, ancestor of today's Nautilus cephalopod. The large number of microfossils (calcareous algae and foraminifers) testifies to the wide variety of life forms in existence shortly before the mass extinction.

The most famous fossil in Val Gardena is definitely the ichthyosaur found on the Secëda mountain. This large marine reptile, around 5 meters long, was the largest predator of its time (241-240 million years ago). As much of its skeleton is missing, it cannot definitely be allocated to a specific genus. Yet it remains a very significant discovery, as it is practically unique in the Early Ladinian period, a time of crisis for these marine reptiles.