Exploring the Geoheritage of Salvador’s Seafront: Tectonic History and Geotourism Potential
摘要
Salvador’s seafront is home to a landscape that attracts tourism and habitation with its striking natural contrasts, underpinned by a rich geoheritage that reflects the region’s tectonic evolution. This paper investigates potential geosites along the Salvador seafront in Bahia, Brazil, where rocks record over two billion years of tectonic evolution — from the Paleoproterozoic amalgamation of Archean segments forming the São Francisco Craton to the breakup of Pangaea during the Cretaceous rifting between Brazil and Africa. These ancient rocks provide an invaluable resource for geological research, offering insights into the Earth’s tectonic history and processes. Four beaches along the Salvador seafront were selected for quantitative assessment of their geosite potential: Barra, Ondina, Paciência, and Itapuã. Paciência Beach stands out for its high geosite potential, combining significant scientific value with moderate to high educational, touristic, and scenic attributes. The beach features rock outcrops containing the rare mineral sapphirine, formed under extreme conditions, and structures that highlight important superficial geological features, such as erosive nonconformity and spheroidal alteration. The site features the rare sapphirine alongside other granulite facies minerals, offering valuable insights into deep crustal processes, making it a focal point for scientific studies. It is also notable for its cultural, historical, and religious significance due to the traditional Yemanjá festival in the Rio Vermelho neighborhood since 1924. The other sites, while not as highly ranked as Paciência Beach, are still important geodiversity sites. The exceptional geological history recorded in their rock outcrops offers excellent opportunities for enhancing tourism and combined with the exceptional geological history, recorded in the rock outcrops, present excellent opportunities for enriching these activities through geotourism. Therefore, this study proposed a geological itinerary encompassing all four beaches to showcase these unique geosites and promote the rich geoheritage of the Salvador Seafront. Incorporating such geological itineraries into tourism initiatives can enhance public appreciation of geoheritage and provides a replicable framework for protecting and promoting geological features in urbanized coastal areas.