Geotourism around Poggiorsini: unexpected geological elements for a sustainable tourism in internal areas of Murge (Puglia, southern Italy)

The recent candidacy of the Alta Murgia National Park (Puglia, southern Italy) for UNESCO Global Geopark (UGGp) opens several challenges to how to introduce geology along pathways where other topics (biological, archeological, historical, among others) are classically proposed to eco-tourists in the area. This short paper represents the first attempt to show some of the many objetcs that should be deepened to introduce geotourists to the geology of the Murge area. It is addressed to the origin and nature of outcropping rocks, exclusively sedimentary and mainly carbonate in origin. The territory around Poggiorsini village could represent the best place to begin this deepening since it hosts the three main kind of carbonate succession regionally featuring the Murge area and its flanks: Cretaceous rocks recording tropical shallow-water environments; Oligocene rocks recording lacustrine environments; Plio-Pleistocene rocks recording temperate shallow-water environments.