The First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites Were Announced in October

Introduction of the Lut Desert and Namakdan Salt Cave in Qeshm Island at the Anniversary Meeting of the International Union of Geosciences in Spain, 28 October 2022

A special meeting marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the International Geosciences Union (IUGS) was held in the city of Zumaia, Basque Coast UNESCO Global Geopark (Spain)

In this meeting that the top 100 sites of the world's geological heritage are introduced, Engineer Alireza Amri Kazemi, director of Qeshm Geopark and a former expert of the Geological Survey of Iran in the geotourism sector, was also present and introduced two sites of Lut Desert Kaluts as well as the Qeshm Namakdan Cave from Iran. He stated that the selection and registration of these two sites in the list of the top 100 geological heritages of the world is very important. He also added many countries do not have representatives in the selection of these sites and so no site from these countries is selected and from many countries only one proposed site has been accepted.

According to a member of UNESCO World Geoparks High Council, these sites are chosen after a long process of one year and with the vote of the world's top geologists, i.e., more than 250 specialists from 40 nations and ten international organizations, representing different disciplines of Earth Sciences, have participated in the selection of sites. 181 candidate sites from 56 countries were proposed and were evaluated by 33 international experts. The result of this challenging and collaborative process is the list of the First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites that will be presented in Zumaia by most of the authors and fortunately two sites from Iran including Lut Desert Kaluts and Qeshm Namakdan Cave were accepted as well after reviewing and applying the opinions of reviewers and carrying out editions as the first 100 sites of the world, which is considered an honor for our country.

 Amri Kazemi noted that these two sites were introduced by me in the special meeting of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the International Geosciences Union during the continuation of the meeting. The case of the Namakdan Cave and the case of the Lut Desert Kaluts were respectively prepared in collaboration with Qeshm Island Geopark and a group of geologists and Dr. Maghsoudi, director of the National World Heritage Site of Lut Desert and his colleagues.

 It should be noted that this global event with the presence of scientists and specialists in the field of geology and geopark from European countries such as France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, England and Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and the USA, as well as countries from Asia, Oceania and the Middle East including Australia, India, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, the Oceania archipelago and Turkey and African countries including Botswana, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania took place.

Simultaneous with the above-mentioned special meeting, a precious book published under the title of the top 100 geological heritage sites of the world  was also unveiled.

This book presents one hundred of the world's top geological heritage sites in the fields of geoscience history, stratigraphy and paleontology, igneous and metamorphic petrology, volcanology, mineralogy, geomorphology and tectonics, and collisional and extraterrestrial structures for those interested.