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Título

Terrestrial impact structures as geoheritage: an assessment method of their scientific value and its application to Brazil

Texto do resumo

Studies and protection initiatives on geological heritage have been expanding all over the world in order to conserve particular geodiversity elements that are important for the understanding of Earth's origin and evolution. Besides the scientific value, geoheritage may also have other types of values, which constitute the bases for its sustainable use with educational, recreation, and tourism activities at national and local levels. The identification of geological sites should be based on solid scientific criteria, which take into account the need to select really meaningful geodiversity exemplars that are truly relevant to understand the geological history of planet Earth. It is geoscientists' responsibility to select the most relevant elements of geodiversity in order to demand from managers its proper conservation and management.
Geoconservation - the identification, conservation, and management of exceptional occurrences of geodiversity - is of extreme importance for the study of Earth's environmental and life evolution. This evolution has been affected by the occurrence of certain phenomena, some of them with a global effect. The impact of extraterrestrial bodies is exactly one of these phenomena that has greatly contributed to major changes in the Earth's surface, its life-support systems and, consequently, in life itself. Hence, impact structures are geological and geomorphological elements with high scientific importance.
Terrestrial impact structures are well known by the scientific community. In recent years, the research done in several countries showed that mineralogical, petrological, and structural evidences are determinant to identify impact structures, particularly when the typical crater landform is no longer very clear due to continuous weathering and erosion.
The main objective of this work is to propose a method to allow the inventory and quantitative assessment of impact structures, aiming their conservation and management as geosites with scientific value. This method can be easily applied to any type of impact structure in any type of geological setting. Despite the existence of several approaches to support the inventory and assessment of geoheritage, there are several particularities when considering impact structures as geosites. This is the main justification for the development of the method, which application is exemplified with impact craters located in Brazil.

Palavras Chave

impact structure; assessment; inventory; geoconservation; Brazil