Construction materials (natural stone, aggregates, bricks, cement, lime, clay, etc.) form a wide and heterogeneous group (both from the genetic and technological point of view), which deserves attention from the scientific community due to their long-term use, importance for the society and sensitivity to the environment. Most of the geomaterials have been also used in important monuments of the World Cultural Heritage. However, our knowledge of many aspects of these materials is still rather limited. This session would like to focus on thorough discussions of the following topics:
• characterisation of traditional raw materials and their products, such as natural stone, crushed stone, sands and gravels, clay, inorganic binders (lime, natural cements, hydraulic lime, and gypsum), earth and adobe;
• recovery of traditional and historic knowledge of their processing and use;
• assessment of stability (durability) problems associated to long-term exposure of these materials to the anthroposphere;
• optimization of traditional construction materials (surface treatments, use of organic or inorganic additives, etc.);
• study of interactions and compatibility between traditional construction materials and modern restoration products
• availability of traditional materials in modern society, including comparative studies between small-scale production of materials (e.g. natural cement) and large-scale industrial processing;
• use of local materials as a part of cultural and technological heritage;
• technological properties and their testing (including relevance of individual tests, limits of methodologies, development of new methods);
• on site and laboratory standardized (ASTM, EN, etc.) and non-standardized testing techniques and their limitations for material characterization;
• monitoring and characterization of weathering features;
• monitoring of temperatures, moisture and salts, particularly under the viewpoint of climate change;
• geological evaluation of geomaterials deposits, i.e. different prospecting and exploration approaches applied to specific features of these materials in different geoenvironments, such as geostatistical evaluation, relevance of reserves and resources classification schemes;
• compositional (mineralogical, chemical, etc.) and genetic aspects that influence processing and final use of geomaterials and their quality;
• alternative use for waste materials from the exploitation and processing of geomaterials;
• durability of geomaterials once being placed in buildings or other structures.

Natural stones are the main material used in architectonic heritage. Our session deals with those natural stone types that have achieved important use and significant recognition in human culture. Their recognition will promote public and policy-maker interest in stone built heritage, encourage the use of local natural stone and ensure the availability of the natural stone required for the maintenance of the built heritage and the quality of new buildings. This session is promoted by the Heritage Stones Subcommision, an IUGS subcommission within the Geoheritage Commission. It encourages contributions for the proposed thematic issue: natural stones and heritage and its potential application and information on possible stones from all over the world. We will as well accept contributions on issues related to the importance of using original natural stones in the restoration and conservation of historical buildings, and other issues associated with Geoheritage such as historical quarries and quarry landscape. This session will also emphasize the importance of Heritage Stones in the preservation of World Heritage sites.

Contributions from previous EGU editions are now published in highly rated journals; Geological Society of London Special Publications (SP407: Global Heritage Stone: Towards International Recognition of Building and Ornamental Stones), Episodes Special Issue on Heritage Stones (volume 38-2, June 2015), Geoscience Canada (volume 43(1), March 2016), Geoheritage (2018). Selected contributions to this EGU 2019 will be considered for publication in another Special Issue for a well rated journal.

Partial funding is available for registration and travelling expenses, through the UNESCO IGCP-637 "HERITAGE STONE DESIGNATION". Please contact convener for further details or visit our web site for details on eligibility: http://globalheritagestone.com/igcp-637/

The European countries are often recognised as the cradle of some of the world’s most important cultural heritage in stone. The cultural, artistic and social importance of stone monuments and lithic works of art evidences the general need to safeguard our praiseworthy cultural heritage. Unfortunately, we are confronted with some problems concerning their conservation, such as the increase of atmospheric contamination, the complex interactions between physical, chemical and biological factors, vandalism, lack of maintenance, and inefficient conservation treatments. This session will focus on the novel approaches that have been recently developed in the field of stone cultural heritage. The new emerging technologies, together with the variety of strategies, methodologies and biotechnological approaches available today show the wide range of possibilities that can be applied to stone heritage conservation. We invite studies devoted to: (i) novel tools for the identification of microorganisms and metabolites responsible for stone biodeterioration; (ii) biomaterials used for the preservation of granite and limestone materials; (iii) natural products from plants or microorganisms as innovative bioactive compounds for controlling biodeterioration; (iv) biotechnological approaches for the preservation of stone-built heritage and removal of sulphates, nitrates or organic substances from stone walls; (v) bioremediation strategies for building restoration. Experimental design setups, laboratory-based assays and field tests are also welcomed.

Geodiversity is an interest for all geosciences, where the natural environment for our science is recorded and assessed. Geoheritage is the appreciation, valuation, and sustainable exploitation of part of this geodiversity for the good of the environment, for society and for science. Geodiversity and geoheritage provide essential links to other disciplines in the natural and social sciences, and they give geosciences a voice to the greater public and to local to global governance.
The EGU geodiversity and geoheritage session has been a large and vibrant meeting spot for a large diverse assemblage of geoscientists and stakeholders for over 5 years, growing with the increasing appreciation of the central role these topics have.
This EGU 2019 session aims to highlight the hottest issues and challenges pending or emerging, as well as inviting a broad range of topics, to engage in a far reaching discussion. As in previous years, we will hold a Splinter Meeting to further discuss hot topics, and will animate the poster session with a special picnic session.

Five main themes to tackle have been identified for 2019:

1) Society, climate change and geodiversity: the problems related to economic and environmental dynamics affecting geodiversity under changing climate and global development conditions. This topic has implications for and links to the IUGS RFG (Resourcing Future Generations) initiative and is a central theme for UNESCO Global Geoparks and World Heritage, and concerns also the management of all types of natural risk.

2) Geo- to ecosystem services and geoheritage: this follows from the first theme in exploring the possibility of developing a holistic and integrated approach to geodiversity, by considering geosystem services, in a perspective of sustainable management of geoheritage to the benefit of the whole environment.

3) Geodiversity, geosites and geoheritage assessments at multiple spatial scales: integrating data from global to local: the present lack of integration between global, regional and local geological and geomorphological data can limit the validity of geodiversity assessment and prevent its applicability for enhancement and protection of geoheritage. This subject relates to practical issues on different spatial scales for geodiversity immediately applicable to the protection of geodiversity, geoheritage and has links with the problems raised in the first two themes.

4) Virtual and Augmented Reality and Geoheritage: the strong innovation potential for this research field due to enhanced application of geoinformation technologies (GIS and Semantic Web). This use of global platforms, such as Google Earth, to outcrops scale augmented reality is a powerful research and educational tool that is developing fast. This theme will draw together demonstrations of the ongoing development of such techniques and their practical implementation into geodiversity and geoheritage sites.

5) Towards a fruitful integration/collaboration of international designations; this is a topic that we invite discussion about, and which is being hotly discussed between the major geoscience unions, associations, programmes and global instances like the UNESCO’s International Geoscience and Geoparks Programme and Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the IUGS International Geoheritage Commission and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, especially through the Geoheritage Specialist Group/WCPA. It will form a subject of the Splinter Meeting, where these major unions will be open to discuss the theme.

Geodiversity and Geoheritage attract a broad range of people from all sides of geosciences and therefore we invite all this diversity to participate in the session.

The session is co-sponsored by the Working Group on Geomorphosites and the Working Group on Landform Assessment for Geodiversity of the International Association of Geomorphologists; ProGEO, the European Association for the Conservation of the Geological Heritage; the IUGS International Commission on Geoheritage; the Geoheritage Specialist Group of the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union of Conservation of Nature, the International Lithosphere Program, and the IAVCEI Commission on Volcanic Geoheritage and Protected Volcanic Landscape.
The session is closely linked to the those of Geoheritage Stones, and to Volcano Resources.