A Look at Earth Archive, a Project To Produce Detailed Maps of All the Land on Earth Through Laser Scanning (theguardian.com) 14
A project to produce detailed maps of all the land on Earth through laser scanning has been revealed by researchers who say action is needed now to preserve a record of the world's cultural, environmental and geological treasures. From a report: Prof Chris Fisher, an archaeologist from Colorado State University, said he founded the Earth Archive as a response to the climate crisis. "We are going to lose a significant amount of both cultural patrimony -- so archaeological sites and landscapes -- but also ecological patrimony -- plants and animals, entire landscapes, geology, hydrology," Fisher told the Guardian. "We really have a limit time to record those things before the Earth fundamentally changes." He also said that while it was important to take action on the climate crisis, even if we started "living like the Flintstones," changes are already taking place.
The main technology Fisher hopes to use is aircraft-based Lidar, a scanning technique in which laser pulses are directed at the Earth's surface from an instrument attached to an aircraft. The time it takes for the pulses to bounce back is measured, allowing researchers to work out the distance to the object or surface they strike. Combined with location data, the approach allows scientists to build 3D maps of an area. The method has already helped reveal ancient cities deep in jungles and map the full extent of sites built by rivals to the Aztecs.
The main technology Fisher hopes to use is aircraft-based Lidar, a scanning technique in which laser pulses are directed at the Earth's surface from an instrument attached to an aircraft. The time it takes for the pulses to bounce back is measured, allowing researchers to work out the distance to the object or surface they strike. Combined with location data, the approach allows scientists to build 3D maps of an area. The method has already helped reveal ancient cities deep in jungles and map the full extent of sites built by rivals to the Aztecs.
'Patrimony' (Score:1)
Good (Score:2)
This is good, but why do we fixate on preserving the past? We might run out of places to live if we cant build over anything old. Shouldnâ(TM)t we invent the future of prosperity instead of remembering the stupid traditions and errors of the past?
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Preserving the past is impossible. But preserving a record of the past gives us perspective on the present, and will continue to be useful into the future. That's why we study history, which you appear to have forgotten.
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This is good, but why do we fixate on preserving the past? We might run out of places to live if we cant build over anything old. Shouldn't we invent the future of prosperity instead of remembering the stupid traditions and errors of the past?
Having a historical record is not the same as preserving it untouched. Today's Chicago is not Al Capone's Chicago but historians want to know everything about that period and how it was like, for that matter someone will want to know how life is right now where you are in 2019 even if you're nobody special, just like they want to know life in every other time period, location, class and subculture. I think some historians would like to hit record on the universe, letting them rewind and study everything dow
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> why do we fixate on preserving the past?
Because like our families, our planet, and our lives, we only have one.
As a species, the future could take many forms and stretches thousands or even millions of years before us. But the (archaeological) past is only a paltry 20-40000 years behind us, and there's no digging it up a second time.
If anything, the oldest and most promising sites should be entirely undisturbed by modern activity until we have the technology to excavate and analyze them down to the mic
Don't show my penis tan! (Score:2)
Great... (Score:2)
Can you start with all the racetracks on the planet?
Feb 2000 - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (Score:2)
They've already done the entire earth, and published the files.
https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm... [nasa.gov]
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I can send laser pulses of my own back, right? (Score:1)
Solution to Climate Crisis (Score:2)
Apparently a nuclear war between Pakistan and India will stop global warming in its tracks, with the added benefit of decreasing the worlds population by getting run of the Paki's and the Indians. As an added advantage no more Indian call center scams, and no more Indian support centers that are completely useless anyway.
And no need to do anything else at all -- no need to switch to electric cars, no need to have solar farms, no need for windmills, and no need for a "carbon tax" (the politicians will have
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