Africa's Geological Heritage Is Underrepresented in Global Research

Africa's landscapes hold some of Earth's oldest geological stories, from South Africa's Vredefort Dome — the world's oldest and largest known meteorite impact structure — to Morocco's M'Goun UNESCO Global Geopark, which records more than 200 million years of geological history. But a new study finds that this geoheritage remains severely underrepresented in international scientific literature, limiting the evidence available for its protection.

The study, by a research fellow and geoscientist at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa who founded the digital heritage project DigGeoNaija, examined publication records in two major academic databases, Scopus and Web of Science, searching for research on geoheritage sites. A global search on Scopus returned 885 publications, but only 31 were Africa-related; Web of Science returned 534 publications, of which 20 concerned Africa. In both databases, Africa accounted for fewer than 4% of results published between 2001 and 2025, and no African country appeared among the 10 leading global contributors or case-study locations.

Within Africa, the research that does exist was concentrated mainly in Morocco, Egypt and South Africa, with Ethiopia also more visible than most countries, while many nations with major fossil, volcanic, desert and impact-crater landscapes had little or no representation. The study's author said the pattern likely reflects unequal funding, limited access to equipment, differences in institutional capacity, and the greater likelihood that research from some countries reaches indexed journals, rather than any ranking of a country's geological heritage.

Researchers elsewhere use tools such as geographic information systems, satellite imagery, drones, photogrammetry, laser scanning, 3D modeling and virtual reality to record geological sites, reveal damage from erosion or quarrying, and give students and researchers access to places that are distant or fragile. Some African projects already demonstrate this: at M'Goun, researchers have created digital records for 13 geological sites with photographs, location data and an interactive map, along with 360-degree virtual visits to selected geosites. The African Fossils virtual laboratory offers 3D models of fossils and ancient tools, many from Kenya's Lake Turkana region, which is internationally important to the study of human origins, with some models available for 3D printing.

The study's author said better documentation matters because decision-makers cannot protect geological sites that have never been identified or assessed, and unrecorded sites can be damaged by mining, road construction, uncontrolled collecting or unmanaged tourism before their value is understood. Greater visibility could also support local tourism economies, including guides, accommodation, museums and other businesses around sites such as Kenya's Baringo and Morocco's M'Goun, and give African students better access to studying their own volcanic, fossil and desert landscapes.