Newswise — Serving in the British War Office's Combined Operations department, crystallographer John Bernal was asked to prepare for a massive, opposed landing in France. His specific task was to predict the trafficability for military vehicles of the beaches and ground immediately inland of the beaches.
Murray Lark (Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, U.K.) describes this unprecedented challenge in "Science on the Normandy Beaches: J.D. Bernal and the Prediction of Soil Trafficability for Operation Overlord," Soil Surv. Horiz. 49:12-15 (Spring, 2008).
Bernal recalled swimming at Arromanches through a suspension of peat and predicted that the beach was likely to be treacherous because of its base of clay and peat. Bernal and his team studied similar environments in England, and a colleague, R.A. Bagnold showed that the view of beach dynamics of the time was wrong.
An added challenge was obtaining information without drawing enemy attention to Allied interest in the Norman coast. Their efforts included aerial photography missions disguised as bombing raids and a discrete campaign to collect holiday photographs from members of the British public.
The group also combed historical records for information, concluding that an old village name suggested a marsh and that an inland area was once a harbor, long since filled with silt. Gradually a picture of the nature of the beach evolved, culminating in a clandestine mission to collect soil samples in enemy territory.This featured article of SSH is available for free access at https://www.soils.org/soil_survey_horizons/pdf/featured-article-08-1.pdf until the next quarterly issue.
Soil Survey Horizons, https://www.soils.org/soil_survey_horizons/, is a medium for expressing ideas, problems, and philosophies concerning the study of soils in the field. Articles include research updates, soil news, history of soil survey, and personal essays from the lives of soil scientists. Soil Survey Horizons is published by the Soil Science Society of America.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, and founded in 1936, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.
SSSA supports its members by providing quality research-based publications, educational programs, certifications, and science policy initiatives via a Washington, DC, office. For more information, visit http://www.soils.org.
SSSA is the founding sponsor of an approximately 5,000-square foot exhibition, Dig It! The Secrets of Soil, opening July 19, 2008 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
RSS