Extraordinary Geodiversity and Geoheritage Value of Erosional Craters of the Negev Craterland

Finzi, Yaron; Avni, Shaked; Maroz, Ariel; Avriel-Avni, Noa; Ashckenazi-Polivoda, Sarit; Ryvkin, Ina

doi:10.1007/s12371-018-0335-7

Cited by 18 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…The current study took place in the Har HaNegev region, using a marked trail in a nature reserve called ‘Bor Hemet’. The trail begins about 20 km from Mitzpe Ramon (see Figure ), a small town (population ~5,000) in the center of Israel's arid Negev Desert, and straddling the northern edge of the hyper‐arid Ramon Crater (Finzi et al, ). The crater itself is a natural geological phenomenon and a popular nature reserve.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The ‘desert experience’: Evaluating the cultural ecosystem services of drylands through walking and focusing

Teff‐Seker

Orenstein

2019

People and Nature

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Assessment of cultural ecosystem services (CES), the non‐material benefits provided to humans by nature, is a particularly challenging activity within the complex field of ecosystem service (ES) evaluation. Assessing CES of drylands presents an even greater challenge for at least two reasons. First, assessments of dryland ES are few and limited, particularly regarding CES. Second, CES evaluation methods, even qualitative ones, generally fail to provide a deep and holistic understanding of the dynamic relationship between nature experiences, culture and identity. The current study uses a novel methodology to evaluate CES in a dryland ecosystem: walking‐focusing interviews. In these interviews, participants are encouraged to focus on various aspects of their physical, mental and cognitive experiences as they walked in a natural desert landscape. The interview protocol enabled us to capture a wealth of knowledge regarding people’s desert experiences. Findings indicate that geological phenomena and other abiotic elements of desert landscapes rank high among participants’ reported dryland CES, which inspire complex and multi‐level experiences. Other prominent themes that emerged included imagination, relaxation, wind and quiet. As deserts are low in primary productivity and therefore display less conspicuous biological elements, the protocol was found to be particularly effective for addressing both their living and non‐living CES. The methodology of walking‐focusing interviews is shown to be able to extract information pertaining to people’s holistic experience of nature, which suggests that it is a powerful methodology for CES assessments of landscapes in general.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Geodiversity, alongside other abiotic features, was also perceived as a valuable dryland service in several studies in Israel's Negev desert (e.g. Finzi et al, ; Reichel & Urieli, ; Sagie et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘desert experience’: Evaluating the cultural ecosystem services of drylands through walking and focusing

Teff‐Seker

Orenstein

2019

People and Nature

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“…Geodiversity is recognized as the basis for ecological biodiversity [3], improving the use of natural resources and the tolerance of ecosystems to climate change [4], allowing its development as a natural [5], geological [6], mining [7] and cultural [8] heritage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Assessment and Tourist Carrying Capacity for the Development of Geosites in the Framework of Geotourism, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Carrión-Mero

Morante-Carballo

Palomeque-Arévalo

et al. 2021

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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The current world situation marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, plus the various specific situations in each locality, require an adequate response to promote development. One of the most recommended is the development of tourism, and precisely that it is linked to the environmental environments of nature. For this reason, geotourism offers guarantees of biosecurity, open spaces, and better conditions in the current situation. Guayaquil, a cosmopolitan city on the Ecuadorian coast, has unique characteristics for the development of geotourism. This work aims to carry out an environmental analysis, using the cause-consequence method and tourist carrying capacity in geosites for sustainable geotourism development. The methodology includes: (i) strategic geosites selection; (ii) environmental assessment of geosites and analysis of their carrying capacity for tourism; and (iii) interpretation of results and strategy development. The results reflect that Guayaquil has very significant potential given its natural geological and biological conditions. The union of geodiversity and biodiversity give the Guayaquil metropolis a special uniqueness, auguring an excellent future for geotourism development. It is vital the develop geosites with an environmental consideration that allows projecting towards sustainable development.

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“…The Ramon crater is well-studied and rich in its geological history, with some unique features such as the largest anticline in the region, exposure of layers from the Triassic period, volcanoes, dikes, sills and basalt flows created from extensive Lower Cretaceous volcanic activity (Schmidt and Karnieli, 2001). It contains marine fossils from the Triassic, Lower Cretaceous, and Upper Cretaceous periods and has additional unique features which have promoted its inclusion in the Negev Craterland Geopark initiative (Finzi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal and Spatial Analysis of Forward and Backward Microbial Contamination in a Mars Analog Mission

Yair

Reshef

Shopen-Gochev

et al. 2021

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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As human exploration missions to Mars are on the horizon, microbial cross-contamination remains a key issue to address. These issues can be approached today using advances in molecular metagenomics methods, which include rapid and sensitive sequencing platforms for characterizing microbial populations. Combined with analog missions, these methods provide powerful tools for assessing the challenges associated with planetary exploration. Here, we designed a protocol to monitor forward and backward contamination events and progression in an 11-days Mars analog mission in the Ramon crater in Israel. Forward contamination soil samples were collected daily from three sites–two sites in close proximity to the habitat and one isolated site. Backward contamination was determined in samples from nitrile gloves of six analog astronauts before and after extravehicular activities Temperature, relative humidity and soil composition data were also collected for all sites. Environmental DNA samples were extracted in the main habitat and 16S (bacterial) and 18S (eukaryotic, fungal) rRNA gene amplicons were sequenced and analyzed to study microbial population diversity and composition. Shannon Diversity index analysis and Principal Coordinates analysis (PCoA) of rRNA genes indicated that differences in the diversity and population composition were significant in sites closer to the habitat when compared to a reference site. These samples also demonstrated the introduction of human-associated taxa to the environment. Backward contamination consisted of bacterial taxa found on gloves upon return from EVA and also detected in soil, altogether 44 genera, indicating backward contamination events. To our knowledge, this is the first protocol to utilize advanced molecular technologies to investigate forward and backward contamination in a Mars analog mission.

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Extraordinary Geodiversity and Geoheritage Value of Erosional Craters of the Negev Craterland

Cited by 18 publications

References 54 publications

The ‘desert experience’: Evaluating the cultural ecosystem services of drylands through walking and focusing

The ‘desert experience’: Evaluating the cultural ecosystem services of drylands through walking and focusing

Environmental Assessment and Tourist Carrying Capacity for the Development of Geosites in the Framework of Geotourism, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Temporal and Spatial Analysis of Forward and Backward Microbial Contamination in a Mars Analog Mission

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