About Geodiversity
Geodiversity is a cover-term for the variety of rocks, fossils,
minerals, landforms and soils that form our landscape and the natural
processes that bring such things about.
So why is it important?
Look about you for a moment. How many things do you see - essential
household or workplace items - that include metal or plastic in them,
or have required energy to make them?
All such items are products of geodiversity. Without orebody-forming
processes in the roots of an ancient volcanic arc, there would be no
copper through which the electricity is conducted in the cables
connecting your computer to the mains. Without the concentration of
iron into sedimentary ironstones in some shallow sea, hundreds of
millions of years ago, there would be no iron with which to make the
steel from which your tractor was built. And without the coal that
formed in an equatorial swamp when Wales was way to the south of its
current position in the Carboniferous Period, there would not be the
energy with which to make that steel. The list is endless. And if we
had no understanding of geology, it would be a great deal shorter!
Many geologists train and then work in the economic sector - using
their understanding to locate and evaluate deposits that contain
important metals or sources of energy. The understanding they gain
results from teaching, by academic geologists who have worked in
various specialised branches of geological research and have then
handed their knowledge down.
In order to do that research, for teachers to demonstrate the
principles behind their understanding and for students to learn how to
study and interpret the information present in a rock outcrop, all
geologists spend time in the field. Geology is still primarily a
field-based science, for without the raw data collected during
fieldwork there is no material to work on: no fossil assemblage with
which to reconstruct an ancient ecosystem, no rock samples with which
to obtain isotopic dates, no mineralised sample to assay and so on.
This is why sites of geological importance, such as RIGS, are so vital.
If we ever lost the
understanding, obtained via fieldwork, of the rocks that underlie our
landscape, our long-term ability to
obtain the raw materials that underpin our very way of life would be
severely compromised.
The sites that make up our geodiversity may be viewed as a vast outdoor
classroom, and they are key places for the training of our young
geologists, for academic research to further understand the workings of
our planet and for demonstrating how this small corner of Planet Earth
evolved over hundreds of millions of years, a fascinating story that
amazes members of the general public whenever and wherever it is told.
That is why geodiversity is important.
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