Toward American Geoparks
Tuesday March 24, 2009
The Global Geoparks Program is a scheme, administered by UNESCO, in which the people who live in areas of great geological treasures cooperate to preserve and promote them for visitors. No land changes hands, administration is minimal, everything is done from the bottom up rather than imposed from above by national governments. China has 20 Geoparks; England the UK has seven. The United States doesn't participate, but people are working on it. Considering the importance of North America in the history of geology, there ought to be an easy dozen geoparks here: the Basin and Range, the Great Lakes, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada, the Mohawk-Lake Ontario corridor, the New York Bight, the Great Valley of the Appalachians, the Ozarks, the ice age moraines and loess hills, the Channeled Scabland and more. In fact the Channeled Scabland was proposed as a National Geologic Trail, but that got bogged down in Congress. A current review of the state of geoparks is present in GSA Today this month, with an invitation to write in support. That's what I plan to do.
Comments
I really don’t want me pedantry to detract from the theme of your article on geoparks in the US but you said that England has seven geoparks when in fact the UK has that amount.
The parks are pretty evenly distributed around England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, which make up the UK.
Sorry again but we Scots dislike being described as England and to rub salt into the wound, Scotland is considered the cradle of geological science.
Not pedantry at all! I simply wrote too fast.
I teach geology and love the science. I’m an avid fan of roadside geology, and would love to see geoparks happen in the USA. Organize us! I’m sure there are more like me out here.
This is a fascinating topic! Thanks for bringing it to our attention–I was not aware of the GeoParks movement. I second Katie’s suggestion for grassroots mobilization and would love to feature a call to action on the blog I edit, My Wonderful World, which is part of a National Geographic-led geographic advocacy campaign.