Geology‐based maps as weapons of war

Complementing earlier articles in Geology Today that have featured military applications of geology during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this article helps to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 2025. It shows that ‘military geologists’ sometimes helped to initiate national geological mapping and that, as a wartime imperative, they notably adapted geological maps to create innovative hydrogeological, engineering geological and terrain assessment maps for military use. Examples come from work by British, German and US’ military geologists—primarily from the 1939–1945 war.