Preliminary Assessment of the Geological and Mining Heritage of the Golden Quadrilateral (Metaliferi Mountains, Romania) as a Potential Geotourism Destination

Viorica Milu
Additional contact information
Viorica Milu: Geological Institute of Romania, 1 Caransebeș Street, RO-012271 Bucharest, Romania

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-29

Abstract: The Metaliferi Mountains (Western Romania) are known worldwide as the richest gold region in Romania and hosts for numerous porphyry and epithermal deposits. In these mountains, mining for gold dates back to Roman and even pre-Roman times. The Golden Quadrilateral constitutes a remarkable example of an area having a significant geological and mining heritage. The main purposes of this work are to emphasize this heritage, to present, for the first time, an assessment of the geological and mining heritage of the Golden Quadrilateral as a possible geotourism destination, and to point out the important role that geotourism could have in the sustainable development of local communities. To achieve our goals, the features of thirteen sites are presented, and two geotourism itineraries are proposed. A quantitative assessment of the geosites’ capacity to support scientific, educational, and geotourism/recreational uses indicates that the Golden Quadrilateral presents a high potential not only for scientific studies but, also, for enhancement of the public understanding of science; geotourism could be part of the development strategy of rural areas. The two museums (Gold Museum and Gold Mining Museum) can have an important contribution both to the geo-education of visitors and in promoting the sustainable development of the region.

Keywords: geoheritage; mining heritage; geotourism; sustainability; ore deposits; Golden Quadrilateral; Apuseni Mountains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10114/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10114/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10114-:d:632304

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().