Catalyst’s Dr. Daniel Tormey and Prof. Avtandil Okrostsvaridze’s book
Geoheritage of Georgia: The Caucasus was officially released by Springer as part of its
Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism series!
“It’s been a long wonderful journey working the last 2 decades in the Republic of Georgia, and this book lays the framework for conservation and celebration of the amazing geoheritage in the country,” said Dr. Tormey.
The first full picture of Georgia’s geoheritage
The book is the first to cover the geological heritage of the whole country in one place. Georgia sits where the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide. That collision formed the country’s mountains, volcanoes, caves, gorges, deserts, and Black Sea coast. The book explains how these landscapes formed and links them to some of Georgia’s best-known sites, including:
- The tower villages of Svaneti and the placer gold behind the legend of the Argonauts
- The rock-cut cave city of Vardzia, carved into volcanic cliffs
- The Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints of Sataplia
- Karst caves, natural “freezers,” glaciers, and mud volcanoes
- Fossil mammal sites and the region’s history of earthquakes and landslides
A framework for conservation and community growth
The book goes beyond describing places. It looks at how Georgia can protect them using international tools such as IUCN Key Geoheritage Areas, UNESCO Global Geoparks, and World Heritage. It proposes a national map of Key Geoheritage Areas, reviews how ready the candidate geopark areas are, and lays out ways to grow geotourism that benefits local communities.
Major topics their work discussed were Key Geoheritage Areas and UNESCO Global Geopark framework, profiles of Georgia’s candidate geopark territories, the geological history of the Caucasus, the placer gold of Upper Svaneti, the Mtkvari ignimbrites of the Lesser Caucasus, Georgia’s river gorges and lakes, and the Black Sea coast. The book brings together many Georgian scientists covering geology, glaciers, caves, seismic activity, paleontology, history, and culture.
About the editors
Daniel Tormey, PhD, is Technical Director at Catalyst Environmental Solutions. He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and has extensive experience in environmental assessment and in managing protected and conserved areas. He has carried out many World Heritage reviews and field missions, and co-authored IUCN guidance on World Heritage volcanoes and on geoconservation in protected areas. Since 2019, he has been a lead reviewer for several UNESCO Global Geopark applications, helping both develop and evaluate proposals. He has done fieldwork in Georgia since 2010, focusing on volcanoes, tectonics, and related geoheritage. He holds a PhD in Geology and Geochemistry from MIT and Bachelor’s degrees in Civil Engineering and Geology from Stanford University.
Avtandil Okrostsvaridze, PhD, is a Professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a leading Georgian geoscientist. His work brings together magmatism, geochronology, metallogeny, and geoheritage. He graduated from Tbilisi State University and earned his Doctor of Geological Sciences degree from the Geological Institute of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on magmatism and volcanism in collision zones, the geological evolution of the region, and finding, assessing, and protecting key geoheritage sites that support sustainable geotourism and new geopark projects in Georgia. He has led and contributed to many national and international research projects, written more than sixty peer-reviewed papers and several books, and presented widely at international scientific conferences. His work has greatly advanced understanding of the geology of Georgia and the Caucasus, especially in geoheritage and geoconservation.
Book details
- Geoheritage of Georgia: The Caucasus, edited by Avtandil Okrostsvaridze and Daniel Tormey
- Springer Cham, 2026, Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism series
- 218 pages, 175 color illustrations
- Hardcover ISBN 978-3-032-27638-4; eBook ISBN 978-3-032-27639-1
- Available now: link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-27639-1
