Photo: Washington Geological Survey
Staggering images taken from planes using forest-penetrating radar are mapping the geology of Washington State. Intriguing, artsy, beautiful and outright bizarre, The Bare Earth presentation on the Washington State Department of Natural Resources website uses shading and added color to present the underlying geological features. The images are gathered through the use of LIDAR, which stands for Light, Detection and Ranging, a laser-guided mapping system that fires billions of laser pulses at an object and gathers information about the object as the beams return. Following a serious landslide in 2014 which destroyed parts of a small town about 50 miles outside of Seattle, the Washington Geological Survey realized it would behoove them to map potential landslide sites to provide early warning for people living there. As it turned out, the same method of discovering geological and climatic hazards using LIDAR can help state authorities plan for all manner of emergencies, such as volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes.
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