Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) technology has been rapidly developed in recent years, which includes a plasma source, a beam system and detection devices that have been effectively improved. This technology has been widely used in the sample analysis, especially in geological laboratories. With the progress of the instruments for promoting the development of exploration geochemistry, ICP-AES is a powerful technology that can solve the accurate determination of elements in geological samples. This paper outlines the progress of ICP-AES measurement technology, highlighting the impact of the instrument's measurement conditions on the interference elements, elements exposure strength and elements in the analysis of spectral lines. This paper also describes the application of ICP-AES technology in geological samples analysis, and emphatically points out that the determination of the elements in the soil, rock, stream sediments, ore samples, plant samples and water samples should be based on the utilization of different properties of digestion systems (such as acid digestion, alkaline fusion method and microwave digestion) for different elements in different samples. A comparison of different characteristics of the digestion systems in the determination of soil, rock and stream sediment samples and a comparison of the method detection limits of the elements by using different digestion systems show that the detection limit of the acid digestion method is much better than that of alkali fusion. The precision of the determination of the elements in ore samples in different digestion systems was also comparatively studied. The results show that the measurement accuracy is good. This paper also summarizes the typical pre-treatment method for the inorganic elements in plant samples, the utilization of ICP-AES to determine elements in water samples, which includes the total amount of each element and the amount of different valence states in each element. Finally, ICP-AES measurement techniques in geology applications are put forward, and it is believed that the ICP-AES will surely play a key role in the analysis of geological samples.