GEODIVERSITY AND TOURISM POTENTIAL IN THE BRAZILIAN SEMIARID: A STUDY ON THE MUNICIPALITY OF FRANCISCO DANTAS-RN/BRAZIL
Geodiversity; Semiarid, Tourism, Geotourism.
Abiotic aspects are fundamental to the maintenance of life on our planet. For this reason, several studies have been conducted with the objective of emphasizing the potentialities of geodiversity. In Brazil, on state of RN, one of the points that deserve attention is the municipality of Francisco Dantas, which has geomorphological and geological highlights in its territorial limits, adorned by rock paintings that condition greater interest for this place. In this case, the attractions present in the aforementioned municipality led us to the following question: What are the tourist potentialities that the Geodiversity of the municipality of Francisco Dantas/RN can offer to society? Thus, it is believed that, through the present study, which aims to evaluate the tourist potential ities of the geodiversity of the municipality of Francisco Dantas/RN, it is possible to clarify this issue. Therefore, the methodological path has been structured in some stages, namely: detailed bibliographic review; fieldwork; application of the GEOSSIT method, developed from the concepts of Brilha (2005) and Garcia-Cortés & Urquí (2009) and the mapping of the area, with the support of geoprocessing software. With the progress of the work, a number of significant researches were obtained, even with the joviality of the theme and, with the accomplishment of the fieldwork in the archaeological sites Congo I, II and III and in the group, we glimpsed points of exuberant geodiversity that affirm the local tourist potential.