Welcome to Geoconservation.com

Welcome to Geoconservation.com, a website created to provide information about geoconservation both within the UK and internationally. This website has been created by the GeoConservation Commission, an organisation that oversees geoconservation initiatives in the UK. The site contains information about conserved sites and site designations, management techniques, international initiatives, organisations involved in geoconservation, and relevant publications, events and weblinks.

Geoconservation is a modern term that became generally accepted post-2000, as an alternative to the term 'geolo-gical and geomorphological conservation' used previously. Conservation involves the wise use and management of a resource, and is appropriate to apply to geoconservation as sites and areas are dynamic and change as part of the landscape.  The term involves active management, implying that some developments and collecting may be allowed at sites where natural processes such as coastal erosion are happening or where extraction of minerals and rocks occurs. Geodiversity Conservation (synonymous with Earth Heritage Conservation) is a much wider term designed to encompass the conservation of geological and geomorphological processes, i.e. rocks, fossils and minerals and landforms, but also museum specimens, building stone, buildings, archives, maps and data.