The Environmental Legacy of Military Operations

Military geology comprises research and practical efforts directed toward providing geological input for military construction, civil works projects (e.g., dams, navigable waterway maintenance), remediation of polluted military facilities, terrain analysis, sustainability of training lands, mobility prediction, and site characterization activities. Land use sustainability issues, base closures, and heightened levels of environmental awareness by the general public have introduced new challenges for using, maintaining, cleaning, and restoring lands that have served as military installations for decades. In this volume, the legacy of military operations and their impact on the terrain and geology, particularly from an environmental viewpoint, are considered by geologists of diverse lands and backgrounds. This book, a companion volume to Military Geology in War and Peace (Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. 13, 1998), emphasizes current research and applications of engineering geology principles and practice to modern day military problems, many of which are environmental in nature.
Military engineering on the Rock of Gibraltar and its geoenvironmental legacy
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Published:January 01, 2001
Abstract
The 400-m-high Rock of Gibraltar is a partly overturned klippe of Early Jurassic dolomitic limestone, notched by raised shorelines and flanked by Quaternary scree breccias and windblown sands. It dominates a narrow 5-km-long peninsula jutting south from Spain at the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Fortified from at least 1160 to World War II successively by the Moors, Spanish, and British, and subjected to 15 major sieges between 1309 and the Cold War of 1947 to 1989, Gibraltar is arguably one of the most densely fortified and fought over places in Europe. Stone walls, bastions, and numerous artillery...