All geo spells are persistent (= stay until cancelled). Most blights are also persistent, and could be used as shield against instant blights. There can be only one geo spell on a town, and there can be only one blight on a town. If somebody hit you with an instant blight another town can hit you again with the same or another instant blight.
If there's a persistent blight on your town all further blights with less spell power are repelled. Likewise, if there's a geo spell on your town all further geo spells with less spell power are repelled. You can cast geo spells on other towns, and also on your own town, but you'd need more spell power to trump an existing geo spell on the target.
Roughly "spell power" depends on the level of your mage tower, the phase of the moon, the spell, and any additional mana. A sneaky tactics is to cast a "good" geo spell with enough power to kill any existing geo spell, and cancel it immediately.