The world is facing many challenges, most of them in some way associated with nature. And yet, much of the focus on nature within these challenges has been solely on biodiversity, the biotic part of nature. Geodiversity, which encompasses the non-living elements of nature — including things such as rock, minerals, fossils, soils, and landscapes, as well as the processes that create, modify, and destroy such features — has received far less attention.

Geodiversity underpins every ecosystem and is therefore vital to biodiversity. The natural laboratory of geodiversity reveals how the environment, climate, and life have changed through time, which is essential to understand as society responds to anthropogenic climate change. Through mineral resources, geodiversity supplies us with the materials needed to produce the technologies that are essential for a greener economy. Geodiversity also influences cultural diversity and provides numerous non-material benefits, such as the landscapes we appreciate during leisure time. But it also has intrinsic value: imagine how different the world would be without geodiversity, if it was just a smooth spheroidal planet comprising a single mineral¹?

世界正面临许多挑战，其中大多数在某种程度上与自然有关。然而，在这些挑战中，人们对自然的关注主要集中在生物多样性，即自然的生物部分。地球多样性涵盖了自然界的非生命元素——包括岩石、矿物、化石、土壤和景观等，以及创造、修改和破坏这些特征的过程——受到的关注要少得多。

地理多样性是每个生态系统的基础，因此对生物多样性至关重要。地球多样性的自然实验室揭示了环境、气候和生命如何随着时间的推移而变化，这对于理解社会应对人为气候变化至关重要。通过矿产资源，地质多样性为我们提供了生产绿色经济所必需的技术所需的材料。地理多样性还影响文化多样性，并提供许多非物质利益，例如我们在闲暇时欣赏的风景。但它也具有内在价值：想象一下，如果世界只是一个由单一^矿物组成的光滑球状行星，没有地球多样性，世界将会有多么不同？