Take a journey into the interior of our planet by discovering rocks that emerged from the depths of the Earth almost 400 million years ago in what is now Cabo Ortegal UNESCO Global Geopark. This geopark provides some of the most complete evidence in Europe of the collision that caused Pangea, a process known as the Variscan Orogeny. Most of the rocks in this geopark were brought to the surface by the collision of two continents, Laurussia and Gondwana, which would eventually join the supercontinent Pangaea about 350 million years ago. When this collision occurred, these rocks were situated in the Earth’s upper mantle, at a depth of more than 70 km. The copper exploited in the geopark’s mines originated from intense thermal activity on the seabed, where volcanic chimneys – called fumaroles – released gases and minerals at a high temperature which then cooled upon contact with water.