Madonie UNESCO Global Geopark: geosites, fossils and trails

The Madonie UNESCO Global Geopark is the UNESCO global geopark that covers the Madonie Park and the nearby towns in northern Sicily. It has been in the European Geoparks Network since 2001 and on the UNESCO global list since 17 November 2015; the latest confirmation dates from September 2025. The geosite map published by the Park Authority in October 2026 counts 70, with rocks that tell about 235 million years of Mediterranean history.

In practice it is an open-air museum. You walk on what used to be a coral reef, spot fossils in church doorways and go down into canyons carved by rivers. This guide explains what there is to see and how to do it.

At a glance

• Recognition: European Geoparks Network since 2001, UNESCO Global Geopark since 2015.
• Latest revalidation: inspectors’ visit from 28 May to 2 June 2025, green card in September 2025.
• Area: the Madonie Park and the surrounding towns, 22 according to Balarm.
• Geosites: 70 on the Park Authority’s 2026 map.
• Symbol: a coral reef about 220 million years old.
• Where to start: the geological trail at Piano Battaglia and the geological section of the Collisani museum in Petralia Sottana.

What a UNESCO geopark is

The Park Authority defines it like this: an area with clear borders, a geological heritage of international importance and a sustainable development strategy for the people who live there. The heritage is measured through the inventory of geosites, the places where geology is easiest to read.

Geoparks are organised in two networks. The European Geoparks Network was born in 2000. The Global Geoparks Network was born in 2004 and since 2015 has been under the umbrella of UNESCO, through the international geoparks programme.

A UNESCO geopark is not a World Heritage Site. It is a different recognition, which lasts four years and is renewed only after an inspection on the ground.

The history of the Madonie Geopark

The Madonie Park joined the European network in 2001. From 29 to 31 October 2004 Petralia Sottana hosted the 5th European Geoparks conference. In the same year UNESCO and the European network signed the Madonie Declaration in Petralia Sottana, which sets the rules for joining the network, and on that occasion the first geological trail in Sicily was opened.

On 17 November 2015, during the 38th session of the UNESCO General Conference in Paris, the Madonie joined the list of global geoparks.

Every four years the inspectors come. The colour of the card says how it went: green if all is well, yellow if there are recommendations to meet by the next inspection. The Madonie have had cards of both colours.

Year	Outcome	Source
2004	Yellow card at the first revalidation	Madonie Park Authority
2006	Green card	Madonie Park Authority
2019	Green card after a yellow one, announced at Sierra Norte de Sevilla	Madonie Park Authority
2025	Green card after a yellow one, announced in Chile	Sicilian Region

The 2025 confirmation came at the 11th International Conference on UNESCO Global Geoparks, in Chile. According to Balarm it is valid for another four years. In the same article environmental groups point to problems still open, such as wildfires and the project for an observatory on the summit of Monte Mufara.

What Madonie geology tells you

ISPRA puts it in one sentence: the park and its surroundings contain every aspect of Sicilian geology except active volcanism. That is why the Madonie have been a training ground for geology students at the University of Palermo for decades.

The story begins about 235 million years ago, when there was a tropical sea here, the ancient Tethys Ocean. According to the Park Authority the “spirit of the place” of the geopark is a coral reef about 220 million years old, built by sponges, corals, sea snails, sea urchins and bivalves. Its fossils now crop out at almost 1,600 metres, around Piano Battaglia.

Then the collision between Africa and Europe pushed those seabeds upwards. The result is a mountain chain linking the mountains of North Africa with Calabria and the Apennines.

Four kinds of rock, four landscapes

The Park Authority divides the geopark into four large domains, plus the recent deposits. Each one shapes a different landscape.

Domain	Age	Where you see it
Panormide	Upper Triassic to Oligocene	Carbonara massif, Monte Mufara, Monte Quacella, Pizzo Dipilo, Rocca di Cefalù
Imerese	Upper Triassic to Oligocene	Monte dei Cervi, Monte Castellaro, Monte Fanusi, Rocca di Sciara
Numidian Flysch	Upper Oligocene to Lower Miocene	Monte San Salvatore, Madonna dell’Alto, Piano Catarineci, San Mauro Castelverde
Sicilide	Upper Cretaceous to Lower Miocene	Central-southern and north-western sectors

Limestone and dolomite make the rugged peaks and pale cliffs. The sandstones of the Numidian Flysch make rounder, wooded hills. Clays make the gentle hills of the southern side.

Formations named here

From the 1950s oil company geologists studied the Madonie in search of hydrocarbons. Their research produced several geological formations, rock bodies with precise features that geologists now use all over Italy.

The Park Authority lists eight established in the geopark: Mufara, Scillato, Fanusi, Crisanti, Caltavuturo, Quacella, Polizzi and Castellana. Their reference outcrops are among the geosites to be protected.

Karst: sinkholes, swallow holes, caves

Water dissolves limestone. In the high Madonie this process, which probably began in the Quaternary, has produced dolines, swallow holes, dry valleys and caves. In dialect the dolines are called quarare: on the Carbonara plateau they can be a few hundred metres across and up to 25 metres deep.

Piano Battaglia and the nearby Battaglietta are two large karst basins, called poljes, with a swallow hole at the bottom where rain and snowmelt disappear. The deepest caves, such as the Abisso del Vento at Isnello, are described in the guide to gorges, caves and waterfalls.

Geosites worth seeing

A geosite is a place where you can read a piece of the Earth’s history: an outcrop, a fossil, a landform. These are among the easiest to reach, chosen from the 2026 geosite map.

Geosite	Town	What you see
Piano Battaglia polje	Petralia Sottana	High karst basin between Carbonara and Mufara
Battaglietta swallow hole	Petralia Sottana	Cave where rain and snowmelt disappear
Quacella amphitheatre	Polizzi Generosa	Dolomite walls and spires
Carbonara plateau	Petralia Sottana, Isnello	Dolines and karst surfaces above 1,600 metres
Vallone Scopalacqua waterfalls	Petralia Sottana	A drop of about 40 metres over quartz sandstone
Gole di Tiberio	San Mauro Castelverde	Canyon of the Pollina river in limestone
Rocca di Sciara	Caltavuturo	Rock sequence of an ancient marine basin
Cozzo Sant’Otiero	Petralia Sottana	Fossil-bearing rocks of the Middle Triassic
Raffo mine	Petralia Soprana	Rock salt, still mined
Rocca di Cefalù	Cefalù	Limestone headland above the sea

The Scopalacqua waterfall is the geosite the Park Authority has improved most recently. In 2024 the area on the SP54 was made safe, and on 23 May 2026 Geoparks Week opened there, with new information panels.

Geological trails

The Park Authority has marked out themed trails, in the mountains and inside the villages. They are the simplest way to understand what you are looking at.

Battaglietta swallow hole to Portella Colla. This is the first geological trail in Sicily, opened in October 2004. According to the Park Authority it is easy, with about 200 metres of ascent and about 2 hours 30 minutes there and back. It passes the swallow hole, an intact reef of Jurassic corals near the Rifugio Marini and Triassic sponges along the SP54, as far as the view over the Quacella amphitheatre at Portella Arena.

Petralia Sottana urban geological trail. The Park Authority presents it as the first urban geological route in Europe. Follow the brass studs and you will find Miocene fossils in the paving stones of corso Paolo Agliata, fossil corals in the doorway of the church of San Pietro and the shell-limestone columns of the Chiesa Madre.

Stones and water (Le pietre e l’acqua). From Petralia Sottana it follows the old drovers’ road towards Castelbuono, crosses the medieval San Brancato bridge and reaches Pizzo Sant’Otiero, the quarry that supplied the twelve columns of the Chiesa Madre. It ends at the Catarratti spring and hydroelectric power station, built in 1908. The Park Authority gives about 10.9 km, which can be split into sections.

Rocca di Sciara. It climbs from via Terravecchia in Caltavuturo, among holm oaks and cork oaks, to the ruins of the hermitage of San Nicola on top of the rock. Along the way you see a sequence of rocks from an ancient marine basin.

There is also an urban geological trail at Sclafani Bagni. To reach the summit of Carbonara, see the Pizzo Carbonara trail page, which crosses the Battaglietta and the karst plateau.

Geopark museums

Before walking, it helps to see the samples. According to ISPRA the Madonie geological museum was created with the town of Petralia Sottana, linked to the Antonio Collisani civic museum.

On 1 September 2025 the new Giuseppe Torre geological section of the Collisani museum, named after the geologist Giuseppe Torre, opened in Palazzo Pucci Martinez, the Park Authority’s headquarters. The Park Authority writes that the whole geological history of the geopark can be seen there.

Other centres mentioned by ISPRA are the geological section of the Caltavuturo civic museum, with a model of the rock, and the Water Museum in Scillato, created with the Department of Geology of the University of Palermo.

European Geoparks Week

Every year, between the last ten days of May and the first ten days of June, European geoparks open their geosites with hikes and workshops. In the Madonie European Geoparks Week lasts about two weeks.

In 2026 it ran from 23 May to 7 June, from the Scopalacqua waterfall to Piano Battaglia. The programme appears on the Park Authority website a few weeks earlier, and outings with limited places fill up quickly.

Rules for visiting geosites

Inside a geopark you may not remove rocks from outcrops or trade minerals and fossils, the Park Authority reminds visitors. The Madonie Park rules also forbid entering caves and cavities not marked as open to visitors.

Many geosites are at altitude. Check the weather at Piano Battaglia before setting off and, in winter, the snow section. For the general park rules there is the guide to the Madonie Park, and for the summits the guide to the Madonie peaks.