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Tanzania is endowed with a multitude of geological features that are suitable for educational, cultural, ecological and tourist purposes. Renown sites include the Mererani area within the high-grade terrains of the Palaeoproterozoic Mozambique belt. This is a famous area for tanzanite, the rare and beauty gem of the world. The mines are important for economic, educational and geotourism activities. Oldoinyo Lengai the world's only active volcano erupting carbonatite lava is also found in northern Tanzania. It is a spectacular locality for geotourism, scientific and cultural purposes. Activities like volcanism, seismicity, weathering and erosion can be easily studied here. The volcano is sacred to the Maasai of East Africa and they worship it as their god.
Ngorongoro Crater 20km in width is another spectacular site, a home of thousands of wild animals. It is underlain by Pliocene Olivine basalts and the pyroclastics. The crater is famous for varieties of wildlife, 'magic' moving sand, and spectacular geomorphology. While it is not the largest caldera in the world, Ngorongoro Crater is nevertheless the largest, inactive, unbroken and unflooded caldera in the world. Olduvai Gorge at the border of the Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park is a deep and wide river galley where the first hominid skull "Zinjanthropus" was discovered. It is a centre for standard dated geological sequences for most of Pleistocene in the Sub- Saharan Africa and a place where well preserved stone tools were discovered.
Kilimanjaro the snow capped mountain, is the highest point in Africa. It is cut across and experiences the high temperatures of the equatorial climate. The mountain is a source of many springs, which are tributaries for most of the big rivers in Tanzania. It is a famous place for tourism, agriculture, and studies on Earth's internal processes. Tendaguru Hill in South-East Tanzania is also a famous place for evolution and extinction processes of ancient vertebrates and invertebrates. It is an important place for palaeoecological studies and geotourism. The least development for these sites is due to lack of promotion and good management. This study explores the pertinent challenges to promotion and management of geoparks in Tanzania.
Keywords: Tanzania, Geoparks, Geotourism.
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