Abstract: The development and application of big data are hotspots in current academic area.This paper analysis the life circle and the characteristics of the geological data in the aspects of its collection，gathering，storage，analysis，which draw conclusions that，the geological works is a typical ecological process of big data.The geological data has the characteristics include：multiple(source)，multimodal，heterogeneous，highly spatio-temporal，high volume and correlation，low value density，complexity and uncertainly.Geological data not only have the common features of the big data，but also has its own special attributes，it is the important component of the big data.The key technical issues during the development and application are summarized in this paper.