The major accomplishments and geological events during the past two decades in the world and their implications for geological work in China in the next thirty years

In the first 20 years of this century, major breakthroughs have been made in the exploration and development of unconventional energy represented by shale gas, tight oil, natural gas hydrate and hot dry rock.The United States has achieved energy independence by virtue of the breakthroughs it has made in shale gas development.With growing global economy and intensifying global changes and energy transformation, the demand for critical minerals is increasing in the world, and the list of critical minerals has been strongly introduced to ensure the security of domestic mineral resources.Great progress has been made in the deep-sea and deep-earth probing.With earth system science becoming the theme of modern geological science, a number of new concepts have been developed, such as the geodiversity, the critical zones, the Anthropocene and the tippling elements, leading tothe geological work transformation.In the next 30 years, the world is witnessing a period of major change that's rarely seen in a century, and facing major challenges to resources, environment and ecology.At this major turning point for geological work, special focus needs to be added on clean energy as well as deep-sea resource exploration and development.The introduction of ecosystem-based technology system for monitoring, simulation and prediction is also essential for carrying out comprehensive survey of natural resources and supporting national spatial planning, ecological conservation and urban construction.