GEOEDUCATIONAL AND GEOTOURISM VALUES OF AGGREGATE QUARRIES, MISSAN, SOUTHEASTERN IRAQ

The geoeducation and geotourism potential capabilities were quantitatively estimated in nine quarries locations in eastern Missan, SE Iraq. A quantitative approach is used to compute the scientific, educational, functional, and touristic categorises values for each quarry. categorised values were weighted for three types of audiences: university students, school pupils, and tourists then, the previous geoscientific studies about quarries areas were searches of different geoscience branches and registered. The results show that geoeducation values are greater than geotourism ones in all quarry sites. All quarries show high weight for the education values while the geotourism values are affected by functional infrastructure in each site. The diversity of scientific values of each site are also studied where the petroleum and hydrological activities increased the geoeducation weight of the specific site and supplied more geological knowledge.


INTRODUCTION
Geotourism, or tourism related to geological sites and features, including geomorphological sites and landscapes, relatively it is a new phenomenon that resulted from a subgroup of geology and tourism. Geotourism charter, which was developed by the National Geographical Society (NGC) is focused on the geoeducation to improve the relation between the visitors and hosts in the geoeducation and geotourism sites, "Interactive interpretation engages both visitors and hosts in learning about the place. Encourage residents to show off the natural and cultural heritage of their communities, so that tourists gain a richer experience, and residents develop pride in their locales" (Herzog et al., 2008 andErrami et al., 2009). Awadh (2016) determined the outstanding values of the Sawa Lake, western Iraq as a world natural heritage. Strba et al. (2020) focused on the economic and environmental benefits of the geotourism and find that the geotourism related activities will contribute to promoting the protection of DOI:10.46717/igj.53.2E.3Ms-2020-11-25 geosites in protected areas. The geosites evaluation has been developing since the 1990s, in three main domains: within the context of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures, (for the elaboration of geographic knowledge on the geomorphological heritage in the context of land planning; and finally, in the context of geoheritage promotion (geotourism and cultural heritage in a broad sense). Tomić, and Božić, (2014) developed the Geosites Assessment Model (GAM) used in the assessment of the three aforementioned geosites in Lazer Canyon is Serbia, and concluded that the tourists in the assessment process have a decisive role on model final results. Geoeducation is an important prerequisite for any region to be a geopark according to UNESCO demands "Education at all levels is at the core of the UNESCO global Geopark concept. From university researchers to local community groups, UNESCO Global Geoparks encourage awareness of the planet story as read in the rocks, landscape, and ongoing geological processes" (Henriques and Brilha, 2017). The outdoor studies and the geosite visits are vital requirements to develop student practical skills, Weather, geoscience university departments students, or school pupils (Gajek et al., 2019;Tipon et al., 2016 andTetik, 2016).
Aggregate quarries and surface mining industry make a giant leaps expansion in the last decade through the boom concrete constructions and road pavements in Maissan. The quarries can be considered as an artificial outcrop, where the rock successions, minerals, fossils and sedimentary structures are exposed for the visitors, and samples can take at any depth of quarry section (Collis and Smith, 2001;Sinclair, 2012). Gajeck et al. (2019) developed a quantitative approach to evaluate the scientific, educational, functional, and touristic validity of the quarries for three audience groups, university students, school pupils and tourists. This assessment procedure was used in recent study to assess the validity of the study area quarries as educational and tourism purposes. In this study, Gajeck procedure is used to evaluate the geoeducational and getourism values of nine quarry sites located at east Missan governorate area (Southeastern Iraq) were estimated, the scores of three audience categorises (university students, school pupils and tourists) are weighted. Finally, a comparison between the geoeducation and geotourism capabilities of current circumstances.

STUDY AREA
Eastern Missan governorate area ( Fig.1) is about 46% percent of the province area. It is characterized by beautiful nature; many local and foreign tourists visit it during year (Fig. 2).
This area also has a rich society diversity including agriculture villages, Bedouin communities and sheep herders with presence of oil sites, groundwater wells and aggregate quarries. The quarries are active and non-active clay, sand, gravel, and subbase quarries (Fig. 3). Nine quarries were selected in different parts of the area (Table. 1) to cover the requirements of the 53 (2E), 2020:25-35 27 current study. The study area is covered with Zagros foothill deposits like, alluvial fan, dunes, and colluvial deposits which derived from the mountains lies to the East North direction across Iraqi Iranian border (Ameen, 2005) (Fig. 4). The lithology and geological ages of the outcropped formations are represented in Table.1, while the geological succession represented in Table 2 (Al-Siaede, 2019). The geoeducational and geotourism importance of this area are resulting from the topography, geological diversity of the sediments and the sedimentary structures. Also, the area includes a wide range of rare wild animals and natural plants that grow in this environment. The area is characterized by tourist potential, especially for the families of the province or from the nearby provinces, although there are no tourist centers in it. Many graduate students and researchers from geological, geographical, biology and oil engineering disciplines have completed their studies on the natural resources and phenomena of the region.    This technique relies on estimate four criteria in each quarry (Table 3), scientific, educational, functional, and touristic. The criterial topics were evaluated on five elements, with a maximum score of 10 (40 for the total score). To evaluate the effect of these criteria on the visitors for each quarry site, the quantitative values are generated in Table 3 are multiplying them by weighting factors (Table 4A). The focus has been on three types of audiences, university students, school pupils and tourists. The results were analysed by comparing with a classes interval for the final scores of the quarries and for the audiences (  (Table 3 and 4A) as following: 1. The study area was surveyed by remote sensing images, previews maps, and field visits to select the suitable quarries for geoeducation and geotourism purposes. The main factors for quarries selection controlling are, security, scientific importance, validity of different geological activation in the area and the distance from the main paved roads.
2. Scientific, educational, functional and tourism scores are computed with maximum 10 points for each part (Table 3). The results are multiplying by weight factors to find the group audience values for three audience groups, university students, school pupils, and tourists (Table 4A).
3. Previous geoscience studies (M. Sc, Ph. D thesis and papers were published in scientific journals) on the East Missan region have been revised to determine the geoscience information available on each quarry sites (Fig. 5).
4. Finally, the results of each quarry values are represented in Table 4. The scientific and educational score marks are collected to represent the geoeducation score value, the functional and tourism scores marks collected to represent the geotourism scores.

RESULTS
Final selected quarries assessment is represented in Table 5. Scientific, educational, functional, and touristic scores are computed after many field assessments visits for the quarry's sites. The geoscience available knowledge was taken from masters and doctoral theses and published papers about the study area. The results of each quarry were represented in the same

DISCUSSION
The final quarries assessment and the results audience types weighting are represented in Table   5. These results are classified according to ranking classes interval (Table 4B) for the purpose of understanding the value of each studied quarry and comparing between them to identify the location weakness points of each one, to work on developing it in the future to be an educational and tourism centre. The scientific and educational score vales are collected together to represent the geoeducation, while Functional and touristic scores together represent the geotourism (Table 6), while, Fig. 6 represents the graphic representation of the Table 6 values. The ranking classification of the study area quarries, (according to Table.4b classes), is shown in Table 7.

CONCLUSIONS
The final analysis of quarries assessment represents in the following: 1. Generally, quarries in the study area have a high and a very high assessment scores for geoeducation values (scientific and education) than the geotourism values (functional and tourism).
2. All Quarries are suitable for audience related assessment.
3. Q2 and Q3, (Manzilyea area) are the lowest touristic scores result because their locations are away from the main paved roads as shown in the satellite images.
4. Q4 and Q5 (Teeb area) are the highest values and heights audience assessment because of their proximity to Teeb river and availability of paved roads and bridges. 53 (2E), 2020:25-35 35 5. Q6 and Q7 high geoeducation score value cause the different geological projects in this area like, oil company activities and ground water drilling. This causes increasing in the scientific and educational visitor numbers. Topography of this area is contributed to the attraction of the local families to visit the location many times each year.
6. Q1, Q8 and Q9: are located near the Iraqi Iranian international borderline. These sites have a highly geoeducation and geotourism importance but the infrastructures must develop by local government and community people.