The topographic texture of the earth’s surface tells a story. From afar, we see ridges and valleys, shaped over thousands of years, sculpted by rivers and glaciers. Zooming into an individual hillside or a stretch of river bottom, subtle bumps and breaks in the land’s surface reveal the imprint of past events, such as floods or landslides. The scale at which geologists observe landscapes influences the stories they tell about them. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory is using lidar to map the changes in the topography.
From an article by Ben Crosby and Kyra Bornong at Idaho State.
Previous generations of scientists interpreted Yellowstone’s landscape using aerial photos or through fieldwork; both techniques are complicated by the presence of dense vegetation. An unprecedented, high-resolution LiDAR topographic dataset released in February 2022 changes all that. LiDAR stands for “Light Detection and Ranging” and is a method that uses a laser to determine distances between a source and target with very high precision. When a LiDAR system is mounted on an airplane, it allows for high-resolution mapping of topography and can even effectively “see” through vegetation. In the same way that the invention of the microscope enabled biologists to visualize the inner workings of cells, LiDAR offers geoscientists access to the subtle and often obscured textures of the earth’s surface.
In the fall of 2020, a small plane flew 436 overlapping swaths of LiDAR data over Yellowstone National Park, systematically traversing the area like a lawnmower. Pulsing out the belly of the plane, a downturned laser swept side-to-side, precisely measuring the elevation of the bare earth below. After 16 months of processing, the data were released to the public. Over 290 billion individual measurements resolve the park’s topography at a resolution of slightly less than one measurement every square foot and capable of detecting elevation differences of just a few inches. This just about enables you to resolve individual bison grazing in Lamar Valley or measure the height of Old Faithful’s sinter cone.
For the complete article on the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory CLICK HERE.
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