ROME (ITALPRESS) – From Oct. 6 to 13, 2024, the 12th edition of Planet Earth Week returns, the National Geosciences Festival that aims, through a hundred GeoEvents organized in all regions of Italy, to popularize the work of geologists, volcanologists and researchers. On the program are hikes among mountains and forests, descents into caves, archaeological visits, nighttime stargazing, workshops, and meetings, introducing people to the complex and fascinating world of Geosciences. Moving between high and low, with many events with different languages and approaches to reach a diverse audience, Planet Earth Week involves students, enthusiasts, families, and the curious.On a planet increasingly plagued by climatic events out of the ordinary, the geo-events organized during Planet Earth Week aim to acquaint the general public with issues and emergencies of which they need to be aware. Signals from the surface and the depths of a planet that still holds so many secrets and at the same time reminds us that it is the only place we have to live. There is no plan B for survival, in short, if we do not respect its mechanisms.The playbill is full of insights and proposals, with many goodies in all Italian regions. A few examples? In Siena, a geologist will lead a tour as tourists would never think of it: palaces, churches and medieval monuments told through the stones that make them up, to find out what they are and why they were chosen. At the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of Valle d’Aosta and Planetarium in Lignan, in the municipality of Nus (AO), astronomers will guide visitors to discover the stars with the naked eye and through a telescope in Italy’s first UNESCO-recognized Starlight Stellar Park. In the Veneto region, the Week offers a double date in the Grotto of Fumane, in the province of Verona, a jewel of prehistoric archaeology: here archaeologists have organized a Flint Chipping Workshop, to try to create a Paleolithic tool by imitating the techniques and methods of the Neanderthals and Sapiens, and a Prehistoric Color Making Workshop, aimed at children, to teach them the use of color and to create a small artistic artifact inspired by prehistory. In Piedmont, it will be possible to visit the Natural Park of the 5 Lakes of Ivrea, whose morphology of basins and rocky knolls, the promoters explain, “was generated by the repeated passage of the Balteo Glacier during the nine Quaternary glaciations and especially the last one: the result is one of the areas of Italy where, at low altitudes, the forms of subglacial erosion are best observed and in whose deep depressions the five lakes are hosted.” In Sardinia, in the Oristanese region, a double event to learn about the history of the area, between myth and reality: first a visit to the old perlite quarries of Mount Arci, which will reveal its geological formation, and then a meeting with experts to disprove the false myths of Sardinian geology-from hills that supposedly hide ancient pyramids to catastrophic events such as meteorites and tsunamis-and to question the role of science where myth complicates reality.”We propose an opportunity for slow, grassroots, cultural and environmental tourism,” explain the event’s organizers, Paleontologist Rodolfo Coccioni and Geologist Silvio Seno. The Geosciences in all their aspects, therefore, as a fundamental element to understand the history of our planet and to analyze our role of passage on Earth. The consequences of climate change, the management of hydro-geological instability, the stability of buildings, based on the soils on which they are built, the activities of volcanoes and the necessary evacuation plans for densely populated areas, but also energy, infrastructure, industrial production, technologies, human health: everything is linked to the knowledge of the Geosciences.In its twelve editions, Planet Earth Week has organized more than 2,000 GeoEvents and involved thousands of people, helping them discover the immense natural, landscape and geological heritage of which Italy is the custodian and responsible. The calendar with all the instructions for participating in the geoevents is available on the event’s official website at www.settimanaterra.org/geoeventi.
– photo press office Master Communication -(ITALPRESS).
