Quaternary Geology of the Indiana Portion of the Western Extent of the South Bend 30- x 60-Minute Quadrangle

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Defining the Geotourism Potential of the CILENTO, Vallo di Diano and Alburni UNESCO Global Geopark (Southern Italy)

The interest of the scientific community about geotourism is abruptly increasing, as well as that on geoparks. According to UNESCO, geoparks should define management policies addressed to increasing the awareness of local people and tourists about Earth’s dynamics to reduce the impact of climate change and natural disasters. With this aim in mind, we tried to provide a solid scientific approach to geotourism that could be useful to the development of a geotourism strategy in the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni (CVDA) Geopark, in Southern Italy. Starting from the official inventory of the CVDA Geopark, we defined the potential Education Value (EV) and potential Touristic Value (TV) of each of the 160 sites listed by applying the Brilha method. Then we selected 20 geosites and geomorphosites with high values of both the EV and TV, and we included them in two geoitineraries. The two geoitineraries move in the inner sector of the Geopark (i.e., from the Paestum archaeological area to the Vallo di Diano basin) and along a portion of the coastal stretch (i.e., from Punta Telegrafo cape to the Lambro and Mingardo rivers’ mouths). Selected sites are representative of several geoscience disciplines (e.g., geomorphology, structural geology, quaternary geology, hydrogeology), thus suggesting that the CVDA Geopark is an ideal place where dissemination of geoscience concepts may be carried out. The latter point enhances the high geotourism potential of the area. This kind of approach was not tried before in the CVDA Geopark and can be a useful example of how to promote touristic development strategies in the area.

Geological Approach for Landfill Site Selection: A Case Study of Vršac Municipality, Serbia

One of the biggest problems of environmental protection in Serbia is landfills. It is often a case that the economic interests are predominant in the landfill sitting; thus, most landfills are not located according to standards. This study shows that detailed geological data assets combined with geographical modeling represents a reliable way to define and locate the landfill site. Geological evaluation is discussed in detail with regard to bedrock lithology, quaternary geology, geological structure, hydrogeology, surface runoff patterns, and topography. An approach combining geographical modeling and geology is presented for determining the sites suitable for landfill selection with respect to their geologic favorability. As opposed to numerous research papers on this topic, in the methodological procedure, special importance is devoted to the analysis of the geological criteria. In this way, it is significantly easier to determine the landfill area with the best characteristics due to geological structure and lithology which unequivocally and precisely indicates inadequate territories for candidate sites. The multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is based on geological criteria upgraded with road (primary, residential, secondary, and tertiary), settlements network, railway, airport, infrastructure, land use, hypsometry aquifer, wetland, and surface water. The score values are divided into four classes, i.e., restricted areas, suitable but avoid, suitable, and most suitable. Combining geographical modeling with geology led to the recognition of two locations to be most favorable for landfill site located in the most suitable area, which represents 25.3% of the study area.

The Initial Period of the Investigation of the Relief and Landscape of the Oka River Valley (the 19th Century — the 1940s)

Рассматриваются изданные с середины XIX века до 1940-х годов работы, посвященные физико-географическим исследованиям в пределах долины средней Оки в Рязанской области, юго-востока Московской области и юга Владимирской области. Отмечен повышенный интерес к вопросам четвертичной геологии и распределения высот в террасовом комплексе долины. Выделены достижения в области разработки вопросов типизации археологических памятников и геоморфологического районирования. Обозначены тенденции, существовавшие в распределении акцентов в физико-географических исследованиях региона за период с середины XIX века по 40-е годы ХХ столетия. Определены главные методологические черты исследовательской работы, осуществлявшейся ведущими и региональными научными физико-географическими школами в обозначенный период и предметом которой были современное состояние долинных геокомплексов средней Оки и их облик в древности. The article treats research works published in the period between the mid 19th century and the 1940s and devoted to the investigation of the Oka river valley in the Ryazan region, the southeast of the Moscow region and the south of the Vladimir region. The article underlines that the issues of quaternary geology and architecture of river terraces have been investigated by many researchers. The article analyzes works devoted to the classification of archeological and geomorphological structures. It investigates tendencies associated with geographic research of the region during the mid 19th century – the 1940s. It identifies major methodological characteristics of the research of the architecture of the Oka river valley performed by leading and local geographic societies.