Monte Bolca is a lagerstätte near Verona, Italy that was one of the first fossil sites with high quality preservation known to Europeans, and is still an important source of fossils from the Eocene.

A Fossil-Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. Fossil-Lagerstätten span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present.