Geological heritage and geotourism potential of Udaipur region, Rajasthan, India

The Rajasthan state of India is always been a region of diversity in its geology, geomorphology, flora, fauna, ethnology, history, civilization, post-Christ historical, industrial, and war-defense development. The area of unending climatic changes from fertile lands of the Himalayan fed Vedic Saraswati, pre- and post-Indus civilization to long-run aridity in the Thar Desert made the Rajasthani people with incredibly strong minds. The Pb-Cu–Zn and other dozens of metals and innumerable non-metals of the Aravalli region one of the oldest orogenic regions of the world have enriched the treasures of all the Indian empires from 4000 BC until today. Udaipur and the surrounding area focused here are a small part of Rajasthan but housed almost all kinds of geological features; viz., Precambrian orogenic, collision tectonics, ophiolite suites, carbonatites, huge deep-water sediments to shallow shelf carbonates, miogeosynclines, and ancient global oxidation events, as well as the events about algal blooms in the world, are remarkably preserved in this small region which we classified into four different traverses with 27 geological heritage sites. The micro, macro, and mega structures, drawn and described in almost all books of structural geology and metamorphic and igneous petrology, are classically exposed in the Udaipur region that merits its place among the best geoparks of the world. Several geological exposures of this region have given prolific knowledge to a number of renowned geologists in India as well as the world. We propose this region to be conserved for future geologists, researchers, and students, as well as for common curious tourists.