Resumen de Patrimonio Geológico de Catalunya (Inventario y Catalogación de Geotopos y Geozonas)
Pere Busquets Buezo, Jordi Carreras Planells, Elena Druguet, J. A. Núñez
Until very recently, the preservation of geological heritage has received scant attention, in Catalonia and around the world. In this paper, we take as our starting point the notion that geological heritage values should be based on both the existing geological record and its usefulness in illustrating a reconstruction of the regional geological history. We, therefore, take into account those outcrops which adequately reflect the regional geological processes, forms and structures. As a first step, a catalogue of 150 sites (geotopes and geozones) was considered essential for the explanation of the geological history of Catalonia. We previously established representativeness and singularity as the main criteria for the selection. The here followed procedure is, basically, that outlined in the GEOSITES project. The information regarding different geotopes and geozones is compiled as digital files. The resulting database is compatible with and suitable for integration into other Spanish, European and international databases.
