Ichnofossils

Can tourism preserve and promote geoconservation? Will Geotourism be a factor of protection or destruction?
The Algarve Basin coastal area comprehends geological formations spanning from Upper Triassic to Quaternary (Lopes et al., 2000). The coastal area between Salema and Figueira beachs is used by tourists / geotourists, mostly foreigners, that alone or in small groups, usually without a guide, walk across the existing trails.
In this coastal area, the sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age are rich in
ichnofossils, already identified and studied, include tetrapod footprints, such as dinosaurs as well as invertebrate marcks, and arthropod burrow systems (Neto de Carvalho et al., 2010). The latter are less known by tourists, and often cause a lot of curiosity. In order to get more information about these trace fossils, the most curious and interested tourists often go to the Vila do Bispo municipal tourism office. The burrows are three-dimensional intersected galleries horizontally, obliquely and vertically. The exterior of the galleries is characterized by a bulbous texture, due to the reinforced structure by small sediment balls made by arthropods (figure 1).
The disclosure of the rich geological information these places contain must involve local people, providing them with the correct and accurate scientific information of this place. This may rise their awareness for the protection of these and other structures either paleontological or geological.
This disclosure may not increase the tourist pressure on these places, since it already exists, but may help geoheritage and its geoconservation by disclosing / providing information about the geo-history (Hose, 2000) of this place.