New Evidence of the Bangestan Geoheritage Resource in Iran: Beyond Hydrocarbon Reserves

Abstract

Iran boasts internationally important deposits of hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons can be regarded not only as an exceptional energy resource, but also a geological heritage (geoheritage) resource. A new investigation of the Bangestan carbonate rocks from the Cretaceous age in the Fars Province has permitted to find several unique features and to assign these to six geoheritage types, namely sedimentary, palaeontological, stratigraphical, palaeogeographical, structural, and economic. The most important from these is the economic type that is ranked nationally. The Bangestan geoheritage is valuable for geoscience research, geoeducation, and geotourism, and this geoheritage is a subject of geoconservation. As these activities can bring some socio-economic benefits, this geoheritage has to be considered a true natural resource. Field studies have permitted to emphasize its appropriate manifestation in the Nowdan anticline (an area in the Zagros Mountains near the cities of Shiraz and Kazeroon), which is suggested as a geosite. Hydrocarbon-related industrial tourism and geotourism activities can be coupled for their mutual benefit. The Nowdan anticline geosite should be used for the purposes of tourism, but it requires some simple infrastructure building and involvement in excursion programs coordinated by a local museum or visitor centre.

The Nowdan anticline of the Zagros orogen as a geoheritage ‘window’ into the late Mesozoic–Cenozoic evolution of the African–Arabian continental margin

“…10** *These localities are not geosites, but just elements of a big geosite corresponding to the entire anticline. If so, these localities do not require in-depth descriptions like geosites; the characteristics of the Nowdan anticline geosite is given by Molchanova & Ruban (2019). **Although these localities may look identical, they display different portions of the Late Cretaceous sedimentary succession.…”

“…1). Some of these (Table 1) were described in recent papers Molchanova & Ruban, 2019); there is no need to repeat these here. However, others are defined for the first time here, and their formal characteristics are given in Table 1 (see also lithology; Fig.…”

“…Specific features of the regional geological history were the mid-Cretaceous uplift and the related regression and unconformity (Turonian event), which can be recognised across the entire Arabian plate (Sharland et al, 2001) and ophiolite obduction along the plate margin during the Late Cretaceous (Beydoun et al, 1992).Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks that crop out in the study area show extensive folding structures trending along the main orogen axis. Molchanova & Ruban (2019) have recently demonstrated that the entire Nowdan anticline should be considered as a large and complex geosite of national relevance. It exhibits various unique features that can be attributed to stratigraphical, sedimentary, structural, palaeogeographical and other types of geological phenomena.…”

“…The Zagros Mountains of Iran provide a worldclass example of an orogenic domain (Alavi, 2007;Aldega et al, 2018;Bigi et al, 2018;Sarkarinejad & Goftari, 2019). Studies of its geological heritage have permitted to identify a relatively small area, the Nowdan anticline, the geological registers of which illustrate many complex features of the whole late Mesozoic-Cenozoic history of this domain Molchanova & Ruban, 2019). Moreover, this history was strongly linked to the evolution of the northeastern sector of the African-Arabian continental margin.…”

Coastal Peloids as Geological Heritage: Evidence from the Taman Peninsula (Southwestern Russia)

“…These tasks can be solved simultaneously because geoheritage analysis requires examination of the basic balneological properties of peloids. Moreover, the higher the balneological potential, the higher the value of the economical geoheritage type of the peloids (this is because the economical importance of any geological resource increases its general value, including its heritage value [39][40][41]). At the next stage of planning, it is possible to designate geosites (in Russia, there is a good legislative basis to achieve this task) and to confirm their protected status.…”