A selection of papers on a broad range of military topics ranging from the strategic perspective, through analyses of historical battles at the operational and tactical levels, to the use of advanced technologies applied to present-day military problems.
A selection of papers on a broad range of military topics ranging from the strategic perspective, through analyses of historical battles at the operational and tactical levels, to the use of advanced technologies applied to present-day military problems.
This book explores the emerging field of political geology, an area of study dedicated to understanding the cross-sections between geology and politics. It considers how geological forces such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and unstable ground are political forces and how political forces have an impact on the earth. Together the authors seek to understand how the geos has been known, spoken for, captured, controlled and represented while creating the active underlying strata for producing worlds. This comprehensive collection covers a variety of interdisciplinary topics including the history of the geological sciences, non-Western theories of geology, the origin of the earth, and the relationship between humans and nature. It includes chapters that re-think the earth’s ‘geostory’ as well as case studies on the politics of earthquakes in Mexico city, shamans on an Indonesian volcano, geologists at Oxford, and eroding islands in Japan. In each case political geology is attentive to the encounters between political projects and the generative geological materials that are enlisted and often slip, liquefy or erode away. This book will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners across the political and geographical sciences, as well as to philosophers of science, anthropologists and sociologists more broadly.
"Eighteen chapters address the complex yet critical aspects of the role of geosciences in military undertakings. The chapters cover a wide range of expertise drawn from the broad area of geology, geomorphology, geography, geophysics, engineering geology, hydrogeology, cartography, environmental science, remote sensing, soil science, geoinformatics, and related disciplines that reflect the multidisciplinary nature of military geology"--
This book discusses the relationship between geology and fighting during the American Civil War. Terrain was largely determined by the underlying rocks and how the rocks weathered. This book explores the difference in rock type between multiple battlegrounds and how these rocks influenced the combat, tactics, and strategies employed by the soldiers and their commanding officers at different scales.
Terrain has a profound effect upon the strategy and tactics of any military engagement and has consequently played an important role in determining history. In addition, the landscapes of battle, and the geology which underlies them, has helped shape the cultural iconography of battle certainly within the 20th century. In the last few years this has become a fertile topic of scientific and historical exploration and has given rise to a number of conferences and books. The current volume stems from the international Terrain in Military History conference held in association with the Imperial War Museum, London and the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, at the University of Greenwich in January 2000. This conference brought together historians, geologists, military enthusiasts and terrain analysts from military, academic and amateur backgrounds with the aim of exploring the application of modem tools of landscape visualisation to understanding historical battlefields. This theme was the subject of a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/345/E) awarded to the University of Greenwich and administered by us in 1998, which aimed to use the tools of modem landscape visualisation in understanding the influence of terrain in the First World War. This volume forms part of the output from this grant and is part of our wider exploration of the role of terrain in military history. Many individuals contributed to the organisation of the original conference and to the production of this volume.
This book contains 20 papers from authors in the UK, USA, Germany and Austria. Historically, it gives examples of the influence of groundwater on battlefield tactics and fortress construction; describes how groundwater was developed for water supply and overcome as an obstacle to military engineering and cross-country vehicular movement by both sides in World Wars I and II; and culminates with examples of the application of hydrogeology to site boreholes in recent conflicts, notably in Afghanistan. Examples of current research described include hydrological model development; the impact of variations in soil moisture on explosive threat detection and cross-country vehicle mobility; contamination arising from defence sites and its remediation; privatization of water supplies; and the equitable allocation of resources derived from an international transboundary aquifer.
The changing focus and approach of geomorphic research suggests that the time is opportune for a summary of the state of discipline. The number of peer-reviewed papers published in geomorphic journals has grown steadily for more than two decades and, more importantly, the diversity of authors with respect to geographic location and disciplinary background (geography, geology, ecology, civil engineering, computer science, geographic information science, and others) has expanded dramatically. As more good minds are drawn to geomorphology, and the breadth of the peer-reviewed literature grows, an effective summary of contemporary geomorphic knowledge becomes increasingly difficult. The fourteen volumes of this Treatise on Geomorphology will provide an important reference for users from undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic. Information on the historical development of diverse topics within geomorphology provides context for ongoing research; discussion of research strategies, equipment, and field methods, laboratory experiments, and numerical simulations reflect the multiple approaches to understanding Earth’s surfaces; and summaries of outstanding research questions highlight future challenges and suggest productive new avenues for research. Our future ability to adapt to geomorphic changes in the critical zone very much hinges upon how well landform scientists comprehend the dynamics of Earth’s diverse surfaces. This Treatise on Geomorphology provides a useful synthesis of the state of the discipline, as well as highlighting productive research directions, that Educators and students/researchers will find useful. Geomorphology has advanced greatly in the last 10 years to become a very interdisciplinary field. Undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic will find the answers they need in this broad reference work which has been designed and written to accommodate their diverse backgrounds and levels of understanding Editor-in-Chief, Prof. J. F. Shroder of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is past president of the QG&G section of the Geological Society of America and present Trustee of the GSA Foundation, while being well respected in the geomorphology research community and having won numerous awards in the field. A host of noted international geomorphologists have contributed state-of-the-art chapters to the work. Readers can be guaranteed that every chapter in this extensive work has been critically reviewed for consistency and accuracy by the World expert Volume Editors and by the Editor-in-Chief himself No other reference work exists in the area of Geomorphology that offers the breadth and depth of information contained in this 14-volume masterpiece. From the foundations and history of geomorphology through to geomorphological innovations and computer modelling, and the past and future states of landform science, no "stone" has been left unturned!
This book is a collection of papers presented at the 11th International Conference of Military Geoscience that was held in 2015. The conference included discussion on a diverse range of geosciences, including military history, military geology, teaching geology from a military prospective, geological influence on the battlefield, and environmental and cultural issues related to management of military lands. Geology and geography have played a significant role in military history, from providing the stone for primitive tools and weapons, to the utilization of terrain in offensive and defensive strategies. Specific to this volume, deserts comprise nearly a third of the Earth’s surface and have been the site of numerous battles where the dust, heat, and a lack of food and water have provided challenges to military leaders and warriors. This book examines the role of deserts in past and modern warfare, the problems and challenges in managing military lands in desert regions, and how desert environmental conditions can impact military equipment and personnel. This proceedings volume should be of interest to scholars, professionals, and those interested in military history, warfare, geology, geography, cultural resources, general science, and military operations.
A survey of the state-of-the-art in the evaluation of natural terrain by earth-science techniques and measurement systems is presented in response to a need that existed for many years. This report considers the terrain as an envelope of the environment and all related parameters that are basic in an evaluation for relevant military applications such as unimproved landing areas, trafficability, site selection for operational facilities, terrain reconnaissance and surveillance, and target detection within a masked terrain complex. Methods of terrain-data acquisition, analysis, and evaluation and their limitations are reviewed. The status of research and development, specifying the gaps in technology, is summarized with accompanying conclusions. The report forecasts the requirement for an automated terrain-data acquisition, storage, and display system. Information pertaining to the classification of terrain data, field devices to measure bearing strength, and a visualized optimum remote sensing system is also given in the appendix. A glossary and a comprehensive bibliography are included. (Author).