Nottingham University, Nottingham, UK

(Conference summary reproduced with permission; original text published in: Häusler, H. 2009. Report on National and International Military Geo-Conferences held from 1994 to 2007, MILGEO, Nr. 30E, Austrian Ministry of Defence and Sports).

The time schedule of the three days Nottingham Conference lasted from Monday 20th June to Wednesday 22nd June. It offered daily keynotes, and two paralleling sessions, covering ten general topics (in the rooms A and B; Table 1).

Table 1 – Schedule

Day	Session A	Session B	Excusion
Monday	1 – Historic 3 – GIS 5 – World War II	2 – Post World War  II 4 – World War II 6 – Historic	Newark Castle
Tuesday	7 – Peacekeeping	8 – US War of Independence	Battle of Bosworth and Fauld Crater
Wednesday	9 – Digital Elevation Models (DEMs)	10  – US Civil War	Departure for 4 days study tour Normandy field trip D-Day (22 – 26 June)

 

Thirty-five authors provided thirty-tree papers. Contributions from U.S. authors nearly equal those from UK and Canada. France and Estonia were represented by one contribution each (Table 2).

One of the highlights of the Nottingham Conference was the visit to the Battle of Bosworth Heritage Centre. The Battle of Bosworth (1485) is one of the three most decisive battles fought on English soil. In Britain it is conventional to regard Bosworth as marking the end of the Medieval era and the start of modern times – the Renaissance.

Despite its critical importance to the development of then English state little is known of the details of this battle. Henry Tudor won and Richard III lost the battle. Dr. R. Bradshaw and Dr. R. Abrahart led this excursion.

Dr. C. P. Nathanail led the excursion to the “Fauld Crater”. During World War II the Royal Air Force stored ordnance in deep mines within gypsum horizons of the Triassic Mercia Mudstone. On 24 November 1944 the largest explosion caused by conventional weapons in either world war took place when some 3500 tons of high explosives accidentally blew up. A crater 100 metres deep and 250 metres in diameter was created. Several memorials commemorate the seventy people who lost their lives. The crater is an impressive feature in the North Staffordshire countryside. Seismographs are reputed to have recorded the shock waves at Casablanca.

The four days post conference excursion to D-Day Beach Landings, Normandy, France was led by Dr. E.P.F. Rose and Dr. C.P. Nathanail. Operation Overlord, the Allied liberation of North West Europe, began on 6 June 1944 and marked one of the most significant contributions to military operations made by geologists. This study tour retraced the footsteps of British, Canadian, U.S. and other allied troops and examined the influence, which geology and terrain had on Operation Neptune.

The proceedings of the Nottingham Conference 2005 were published by Land Quality Press.

Table 2 – Papers

Author	Title	Subject
ABRAHART & BRADSHAW	Terrain and tactics at the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815	Geology, geomorphology
BRADSHAW & ABRAHART	Newark Civil War defences	Geography
BRADSHAW & ABRAHART	The Battle of Bosworth 1485: contested locations for the battlefield site	Geography
DOYLE	“Six VC´s before breakfast”: terrain and the Gallipoli Landings, 25 April 1915	Geography, terrain intelligence, WWI
EHLEN	Magnificent men in flying machines: Tactical control of the High Ground, Korea, 1950	Geography
EHLEN & WHISONANT	Casualties (Opfer), geology, and terrain in the American Civil War	Geology, DEM
FERLAND	Military cartography trends for situation awareness	Cartography
FRANKLIN & GUTH	The effects of DEM re-interpretation on viewshed computations	Topography, DEM
FRIEND	Environmental analysis in support of the military commander	Goings, Military geology
GALGANO	“Sichelschnitt”: May 1940, the German attack through the Ardennes – A geographic analysis of a decisive campaign	Geography, WWII
GUTH	Challenges for military application of high resolution DEMs	Topography, DEM
HAMILTON	Imagery of the battlescape, Roger Fenton and the Crimean War	History
HARRISON & THOMPSON	Terrain and non-linearity: Kampfgruppe Peiper and the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944	Geology (terrain, climate; movement), WWII
HENDERSON	The geology of the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn and battlefield preservation in an urban environment	Geology, history
HEFFERNAN	Geography, military intelligence and WWI	Geography, intelligence, WWI
JACKSON	The changing nature of geo-intelligence and consequential research challenges	Intelligence, US NGA
McDONALD & CALDWELL	Geochemical characteristics of Iraqi dust and soil samples and related impacts to weapon malfunctions	Geology
MAHANEY & TRICART	Hannibal´s debacle in the Combe de Queyras in 218 B.C.: The unknown Gallic commander	Geography, history
MAHANEY, KALM & DIRSZOWSKY	The Hannibalic invasion of Italia in 218 B.C.: geological/topographical analysis of the invasion routes	Geography, history
MARTIN	Non-control of space and other spatial aspects of peacekeeping operations	Geography, peacekeeping, in general
MEHARG	Identicide and the geographies of post-conflict reconstruction	Post-conflict reconstruction
NATHANAIL	The tectonic impact of the Manhattan Project	Geology
NATHANAIL	The Fauld Crater: WWII’s largest conventional explosion	Geology, WWII
OBROCK & GUTH	Filling holes in SRTM DEMs using ASTER DEMs	Topography
PALKA & HARMON	A geographical analysis of Australia for tropical testing of U.S. Army materiel and systems	Geography
PASSMORE & HARRISON	The geography of battle in the Ardennes campaigns of 1940 and 1944	Geography, WWII
ROSE	Military applications of geology: a historical perspective	Geology
ROSE	German military geologists and fortification of the British Channel Islands during World War II	Geology, WWII
ROSE	British military geological terrain evaluation for “Operation Overlord”: the Allied Invasion of Normandy in June 1944	Geology, WWII
SWANSON	Multi-resolution digital elevation model visualization and analysis	Topography, DEM, remote sensing, DEM
SCHROEDER	Commonwealth and American tactics in World War II	Geography, tactics, WWII
WALTHAM & HARMON	Military uses of the sandstone caves of Nottingham, UK	Geology
WHISONANT, UNDERWOOD & SURBER	Shock and awe on the union right: Geologic and geomorphological analysis of the battle of Chancellorsville	Geology