:
1 Gil F. Piekarz gil@onda.com.br
1Antonio
Liccardo
2Mário
Sérgio de Melo
2Gilson
Burigo Guimarães
3Luiz
Alberto Fernandes
1 Minerais
do Paraná S.A – MINEROPAR
2Universidade
Estadual de Ponta Grossa – UEPG
3Universidade
Federal do Paraná - UFPR
The State Park of
Vila Velha, with 3,122.11ha established in 1953 and safekept in 1966 by the
Historical and Artistic Patrimony of Paraná and constitutes one of main
Brazil’s southern touristic attractions. About 70,000 people/year come to Vila
Velha to visit three main attractions: special relief in sandstones from glacial
origin (Itararé Group – Devonian age); the “furnas”, rounded depressions like
shafts originated by dissolution; and Lagoa Dourada, an ancient “furna” filled
by alluvial sediments, and actually a lake.
The establishment
of outdoors and divulgation of pamphlets with geological information have
included the geological knowledge as touristic product, bringing the public a
new vision of the natural heritage and contributing substantially for the
development of an environmental conscience and divulgation of geosciences.
Outdoors and pamphlets show the visitors a summary of geology of the park,
contextualized with the geology of Paraná. Through photos, diagrams and
schematic profiles, the content emphasizes the origin and the geomorphologic
evolution of the sandstone forms and even about the origin of “furnas” that
arouse the curiosity of tourists.
Nowadays is being
established a geotouristic track inside the park pointing out the main didactic
subjects that show geological evolution. This track represents an important
tool for teaching geology and it has a fundamental role to translate the
visitors the scientific content.
Keywords – Vila Velha;
geotrack; geotourism; Paraná; geopark