Researchers out of Colorado are hoping to map the entire earth with a new type of laser technology, and climate change is driving the effort.
is an unprecedented endeavor that would use laser-based mapping called lidar to track changes to landscapes around the world.
, an archaeology professor at Colorado State University who founded the project, said it鈥檇 start with high-risk areas like the Amazon rainforest, but regions like the Mountain West could use it, too.
鈥淚n the last 20 years, the Mountain West has changed so much that John Denver wouldn鈥檛 even recognize it,鈥� Fisher said. 鈥淎nd it doesn鈥檛 have anything to do with the huge number of people that are moving here. It鈥檚 just the landscape and vegetation change.鈥�
It would be a massive and expensive effort, but Fisher argues it鈥檒l be worth it for future archeologists to know what the earth once looked like.
鈥淭he fact of the matter is that our earth is changing so quickly and we have such a limited time to record everything as it exists today before it鈥檚 gone forever,鈥� he said.
Some critics this project may be too big and that it鈥檇 even be challenging to get permissions to do mapping in places like the Amazon. Fisher said he鈥檚 an optimist, and he sees conversations with lawmakers and regulators in other regions as a good thing.
鈥淚 feel like this is a period of time in our human history where everybody has to step up to the plate and do something. And this is what I felt we could do,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 see this, the climate crisis, not as a problem...I see this as an opportunity for us to come together as a species and solve this common problem.鈥�
There are several lidar projects in the Mountain West and in the U.S., including an effort to , though with lower resolution than the Earth Archive project.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUER in Salt Lake City, KUNR in Nevada, and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.
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