Paleorrota, Geopark in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Paleorrota is a geopark spanning the central region of Rio Grande do Sul and preserving rock formations from the Permian and Triassic periods. The site encompasses around 48 municipalities connected by fossil locations, where visitors can observe remains from these two ancient geological eras.

The first fossils were found in 1902 near the Alemoa hill in Santa Maria, when Jango Fischer sent remains to Hermann von Ihering; Arthur Smith Woodward identified a land reptile, named Scaphonyx fischeri. Friedrich von Huene led an expedition in 1928–29, and Llewellyn Ivor Price worked the area from the 1930s to the 1950s, finding Staurikosaurus in 1936.

The region's mascot, Dinotchê, is a dinosaur dressed as a gaucho who drinks mate and eats churrasco of Rincosaurus and Dinodontosaurus. The Paleorrota flag takes the flag of Rio Grande do Sul and places a white Staurikosaurus in the centre, honouring the first Brazilian dinosaur, found by Llewellyn Ivor Price at Santa Maria. The Grupo Paleorrota, created in 2010, links people involved in tourism, research and education.

Paleorrota stretches over tens of thousands of square kilometres along the BR-287, the "Dinosaur Route", in central Rio Grande do Sul. The main fossil-bearing formations lie near Santa Maria, São Pedro do Sul and Mata, and the petrified-forest sites of the north are reached from those towns. The CAPPA research centre is being built in São João do Polêsine on state road RS 149, near the Nossa Senhora da Salete monument.

The Santa Maria Formation rocks contain fossils of Staurikosaurus, one of the earliest known dinosaurs. These discoveries also reveal evidence of both land and water habitats, offering insight into the diversity of life during that era.