Lluís Marià Vidal first campaigns

First scientific visit to La Pedrera, Société Géologique de France

In 1898 several members of the Société Géologique de France made a tour of the Montsec area. According to Aragonés (2019), within the extraordinary meeting that the Société Geologique de France held in Barcelona in 1898, a visit to the central region of Lleida, led by Vidal, was scheduled. They are accompanied on the visit by Jaume Almera, Artur Bofill and Patrick-William Stuar-Menteath. On Wednesday 13 they arrive in Vilanova de Meià and at noon they start the crossing to Montsec through the Pas de les Eugues and arrive at Pas Nou. In Vidal’s notes there is nothing to indicate that they visited the lithographic limestones. On the other hand, it was not until a few days after the excursion that he recognized the limestone of La Cabroa and, in addition, at the time of the excursion no fossil had yet come out of La Pedrera, which was already in operation. We can consider the period of commercial extraction of the quarry as a paleontological campaign because, during the works, there was a certain control over the fossil remains that came out when the stone blocks were removed.