INVENTÁRIO E QUANTIFICAÇÃO DE GEOSSÍTIOS COMO SUBSÍDIO À CRIAÇÃO DO GEOPARQUE PEDRAS BRANCAS, PLANALTO CATARINENSE, SUL DO BRASIL

Geosites inventory and quantification as a subside for the creation of Pedras Brancas Geopark, Catarinense Plateau, South Brazil

Abstract

The locality of Pedras Brancas on Catarinense Plateau houses countless rock occurrences that tell part of the history of the planet. These occurrences are related to the Geological Basin of Paraná which is composed by sedimentary units, to the Serra Geral Group composed by extrusive igneous rocks and by litotypes from Alkaline District of Lages which contains several occurrences of alkaline intrusive igneous rocks. The region's geodiversity comes from the successive geological events associated to the erosion and intemperism processes which  carved and shaped the relief from the study area, causing the formation of landscapes, ruiniform reliefs, canions, caves, gorges, cuestas among others. The areas with the best and biggest occurrences were identified, inventoried and quantified in order to do a database of the geodiversity so as to generate a Geopark in the region. Altogether, six geosites were identified with the Geossit methodology in which the touristic, educational and scientific potential and the degradation risk were identified.