The eastern (Swiss) side of the mountain, between the municipalities of Brusino Arsizio, Riva San Vitale, and Meride, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2003.

The south side of the mountain is home to Tremona-Castello Archaeological Park, a fortress and settlement which was continuously inhabited by artisans from the Neolithic up until the 14th century.

Motivated by a search for furnace and lamp oil for Milan, mining projects attempted to establish themselves in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, focusing on the bituminous shale of the Grenzbitumenzone (Besano Formation).

Kuhn-Schnyder established the Palaeontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich (PIMUZ) in 1956, which now hosts over 15,000 specimens of Monte San Giorgio fossils.

The nomination of Monte San Giorgio was inspired by its exceptional paleontological value, with multiple fossiliferous levels preserving among the best records of Middle Triassic life in the world.

Monte San Giorgio also presents a link between local geology and culture, as well as unique ecological heritage relative to the rest of Switzerland.

[3] In 2010, the World Heritage Site was expanded further, adding 240.34 ha of land from the Italian communes of Besano, Porto Ceresio, and Viggiù.

The site is not in any particular danger from overutilization or degradation, so management is mainly related to closely-regulated fossil excavations, promotion, and maintenance of low-impact tourism facilities.

Monte San Giorgio fossils are collected, curated, and displayed by a small number of museums, primarily the PIMUZ, MSNM, and MCSN.

South of Meride, they are replaced by Late Triassic coastal sediments which give way to Early Jurassic limestone overlooking the Po Plain.

[5] The stratigraphically lowest rocks exposed on Monte San Giorgio are Lower Permian in age, around 290-280 Ma (million years old).

These volcanic rocks are mainly reddish rhyolite and andesite with a porphyritic texture, produce large crystals of quartz, barite, and fluorite.

The Servino and Bellano Formation can be difficult to differentiate, but together they reconstruct a period of transgression (rising sea levels) encroaching onto a sandy coastline dotted with deltas and floodplains.

The basin is now preserved as a relatively narrow band of dark dolomite and shale, running east to west along the edge of Monte San Giorgio.

Terrestrial and shallow-water organisms such as shrimps, conifer branches (Voltzia), and land reptiles (Ticinosuchus) were occasionally washed into the basin as well.

Higher organic content and finer laminations return a short while later, forming the lower part of the fossil-rich Meride Limestone.

This formation, the Pizzella Marls, is diagnosed by a higher amount of siliciclastics (sediments eroded down from terrestrial rocks) and evaporites (mineral deposits from dried water), such as gypsum.

By the time of the Rhaetian stage (~208 to 201 Ma), the Dolomia Principale was buried by a shorter but more stable sequence of shallow-water marl and carbonate, the Tremona Series.

Outcrops of Jurassic sediments are also seen close to the Po Plain, at the south edge of Monte San Giorgio (in a broad sense).

The rhyolite-based northern slope is mostly covered by Castanea sativa (sweet chestnut), Quercus petraea (sessile oak), and Fraxinus excelsior (European ash).

[3] The driest and most alkaline soils of Monte San Giorgio are home to the Ticino dry meadows, a unique biome with over 100 plant and species, 38 of which are rare or endangered within Switzerland.

Invertebrates are even more diverse, including some species which are very rare in Switzerland, such as Pyrgus armoricanus (Oberthur's grizzled skipper), Euchorthippus declivus (Jersey grasshopper), and Pholidoptera littoralis insubrica (littoral dark bush-cricket).