Ordovician and Silurian geological heritage of the Arouca region (Portugal)

The studied region is situated in the Aveiro district, about 50 km SW of Oporto (northern Portugal) and has a rich geological, biological and cultural heritage. The Arouca Geopark was formally established there in late 2007, under the auspices of Arouca’s Municipal Chamber, to reunite 36 geosites from which some of them involve remarkable Ordovician and Silurian rocks and fossils. Outcrops of both periods belong to the Valongo- Tamames syncline of the Central Iberian Zone. Lower Palaeozoic rocks around the Canelas Slate Quarry are of special interest, leading to the creation of a geotouristic route visiting three Ordovician units (Santa Justa quartzites, Valongo shales and Sobrido quartzite plus glaciomarine diamictites) and one Silurian (graptolitic black shales), as well as a Roman gold mine dug in the Lower Ordovician quartzites. However, the most outstanding geosite is the quarry itself, where Middle Ordovician giant trilobites (up to 70 cm in size) and trilobite clusters (up to thousands of specimens) occur in large slabs of slate and are recovered during the exploitation. The Geological Interpretation Centre of Canelas, located near the quarry and open since 2006, is one of the main tourist attractions of the Arouca Geopark, created to preserve and disseminate knowledge about trilobites and the Ordovician world, and having received more than 10,000 visitors in its first 17 month