Musée de géologie Pierre-Vetter

About the museum

The museum presents the geological richness of Decazeville and the region: rocks, minerals and, above all, fossils. Most of the collections were assembled by Pierre Vetter, a geologist and founder of the museum, notably during his career with the Houillères d’Aquitaine. A significant deposit was made in the early 1980s by the Société des lettres, arts et sciences de l’Aveyron: this is the collection assembled in the 19th century by the geologist Adolphe Boisse.

A large part of the fossils was discovered during coal mining. They date from the Carboniferous, around 300 million years ago, and are the remains of a tropical forest from which the coal originated. The museum holds one of the finest collections of fern fossils and other extinct plants, as well as a fossil unique in Europe: the remains of a tree trunk nearly 4 meters high.

The route also traces the history of coal, from its formation to its extraction, notably open-pit mining. Fine 19th-century models are on display, including the model of the entire Decazeville coal basin at a scale of 1/5000, shown at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Highlights

• Fossils of ferns and plants from the Carboniferous
• Remains of a fossil tree trunk of nearly 4 m
• Model of the Decazeville coal basin at 1/5000 scale, shown in 1900
• History of coal and open-pit mining
• Rocks and minerals of the region

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