Compound geotourism and mine tourism potentiality of Soma region, Turkey
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Compound geotourism and mine tourism potentiality of Soma region, Turkey Aysan Gürer 1 & Ömer Feyzi Gürer 2 & Ercan Sangu 2 Received: 11 May 2019 / Accepted: 30 October 2019 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2019
Abstract Geotourism is carried out in order to draw public attention to our common geological heritage, to increase our knowledge of geology, and to contribute to the local economy. Mining tourism also aims to show the importance and necessity of mining activity despite its difficulties and to contibute to the economy of local mining community. Moreover, mining tourism can transform the image of the mining region from negative to positive, after major mining accidents and raise morale of the local miners. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of the region for geotourism and mining tourism. Among a wide variety of geotourism elements in the region, there are Kula Volcanic Geopark, Soma coal mines, and lignite-fired thermic power plant, Salihli geothermal energy plants, Spil Mountain National Park. This geodiversity in the region has led us to suggest the concept of compound geotourism. The richest lignite deposits in western Anatolia are in Soma. Here we offer a glimpse into the possibilities of mining tourism. A qualitative and pre-quantitative assessment was carried out to make a geodiversity inventory of the region. Scientific, educational, and tourism values of the proposed geotourism elements were found high, and fortunately the risk of deterioration of geodiversity in the region is found low. The geodiversity in Manisa province and its districts, Soma, Kula, and Salihli, is very suitable for geotourism; also Soma is an excellent area for mining tourism. Keywords Geodiversity . Mining tourism . Geopark . Geo-energy tourism . Neotectonics
Introduction In recent years, many studies have been conducted on the presentation of geotourism for the protection and promotion of geological heritage (Dowling and Newsome 2006; Errami et al. 2009; Chen et al. 2015; Çetiner et al. 2018; Çiftçi and Güngör 2016; Kazancı 2012; Yürür et al. 2018). We are here proposing compound geotourism concept which is obtained
Responsible editor: Haroun Chenchouni * Aysan Gürer [email protected] Ömer Feyzi Gürer [email protected] Ercan Sangu [email protected] 1
Geophysical Engineering, Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, 34320 İstanbul, Turkey
2
Geological Engineering, Kocaeli University, 41380 Kocaeli, Turkey
by combining at least two different earth science-based tourism types such as mining tourism and geotourism, for the first time. Cahyadi (2016) used a similar approach to integrate geotourism and archeotourism. Our study area is in west Anatolia and general structural elements of western Anatolia are also shown in Fig. 1a. In this study, we are proposing compound geotourism concept for Soma and its environs which are in west Anatolia where there is a rich variety of the geotourism elements with mining tourism values. Soma covers 826 km2 and is one of the 17 districts of Manisa
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