The Oligocene carbonate platform of the Zagros Basin, SW Iran: An assessment of highly-complex geological heritage

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

“…The objective of this paper is to provide the new evidence of the hydrocarbon-related geoheritage from southwest Iran, where the oil-reservoir rocks of the Bangestan Group are exposed in the Zagros Mountains. This study follows, although not replicates, the recent works of Habibi and Ruban [7], Habibi et al [22], Maghsoudi and Rahmati [23], and Pourahmad et al [24] and is aimed at the multi-aspect description and effective promotion of the Iranian geoheritage, urgent tasks because of the still insufficient development of geoconservation and geotourism in the Middle East. Linking new geoheritage objects to the well-known hydrocarbon reserves seems to be an efficient approach to sustain the growth of the noted activities in Iran and also to facilitate sustainable development in the southwestern part of the country.…”

“…Methodologically, this investigation is based on the general understanding of the geoheritage [22,49,50], its typology [1,22], and some basic approaches for its descriptions [7,49,51]. Characterizing the Bangestan geoheritage resource is possible via seven successive steps.…”

“…This resource is especially important when hydrocarbon reserves become depleted, or when there is a necessity to decrease the dependence of the national economy on the oil and gas export. The relevant ideas were presented by Bahrainy and Jahani Moghadam [5], dos Reis and Henriques [6], Habibi and Ruban [7], Klamar et al [8], Kruczek and Kruczek [9], Luud et al [10], Metsaots et al [11,12], Price and Ronck [13], Raukas and Tavast [14], Searle [15], and Sepp and Roose [16]. In sum, there are three main lines of evidence.…”

Old Processes, New Movements: The Inclusion of Geodiversity in Biological and Ecological Discourse

“…The diversity of abiotic elements across a temporal scale was also included in some definitions of geodiversity [57]. Other alternative perspectives that recognize geodiversity as a more numerical, quantitative measurement used the term to refer only to topographic variation in the abiotic environment [58] or only to the qualitative variations in the pre-recognized geoheritage sites within an area [4,[59][60][61]. Similarly, the variation in the qualitative values of 'geosingularities' (elements of geodiversity that stand out most to tourists) in geoparks [62] was termed 'geodiversity'.…”

Aesthetics-based classification of geological structures in outcrops for geotourism purposes: a tentative proposal

“…The importance of aesthetic properties of geological objects in geoconservation and geotourism has been known for many years (Tourtellot, 2006;El Wartiti et al, 2008;Boley et al, 2011;Fassoulas et al, 2012;Ghazi & Ghadiri, 2012;Gray, 2013;Phuong et al, 2013;Unjah et al, 2013;Walliss & Kok, 2014;Necheş & Erdeli, 2015;Coratza et al, 2016;Hose, 2016;Jorgenson & Nickerson, 2016;Warowna et al, 2016;Habibi & Ruban, 2017). However, it is uncommon to evaluate such properties on a quantitative or semi-quantitative basis.…”