OT Blog
Information and discussion related to high-resolution lidar topography for the Earth sciences
Sep 20, 2010
The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Working Group V6 is promoting a session at the April, 2011 Association of American Geographers (AAG) annual meeting in Seattle on "Close range morphological measurement for the Earth sciences". This session emphasizes digital photgrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) applications in the Earth sciences:
Geomorphologist and Earth Scientists are making increased used of digital photogrammetry and laser scanning to quantify morphological change. The International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS... more
Sep 16, 2010
Palm Springs CBS TV affiliate KPSP has a nice report and video from the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) annual meeting this past week highlighting the recently collected LiDAR data along the surface rupture of the April 4th, 2010 El Mayor-Cucupah earthquake in northern Baja California. Results from analysis of preliminary data products were presented at the SCEC meeting. The video features Mike Oskin of UC Davis, and OpenTopography Co-PI, Ramon Arrowsmith from ASU. Read the article and view the video here: Scientists: It's Now Easier to Predict 'The Big One'
These data were... more
Report compares LiDAR to aerial and multi-spectral imagery for identifying and mapping active faults
Sep 15, 2010
Ante Perez at the California Geological Survey recently forwarded me a link to a Final Technical Report they've submitted on research conducted with funding from the USGS National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). The report, entitled Utility of Combined Aerial Photography and Digital Imagery for Fault Trace Mapping in Diverse Terrain and Vegetation Regimes (project Co-PIs: Jerome A. Treiman, Florante G. Perez, and William A. Bryant, all CGS) compared various types of imagery for mapping and identifying active faults in southern California:
In this study we compared the... more
Sep 13, 2010
As part of a Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) and OpenTopography collaboration, Sarah Robinson (ASU M.S. student) and Andrew Whitesides (USC undergraduate) - supported by SCEC's ACCESS program (Advancement of Cyberinfrastructure Careers through Earthquake System Science) and in collaboration with numerous SCEC scientists and the OpenTopography team - have produced a new educational video entitled LiDAR - Illuminating Earthquake Hazards. The video provides an introduction to both LiDAR technology as well as the earthquake science that is being done with the data.
The video... more
Aug 10, 2010
Session announcements for the fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco are beginning to appear. The following session on ground based geodetic techniques includes an emphasis on terrestrial laser scanning:
Dear Colleagues:
We would like to bring to your attention the following special session on Ground Based Geodetic Techniques and Science Applications to be held at the 2010 Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco, December 13 - 17:
Ground Based Geodetic Techniques and Science Applications
Ground-based geodesy is a rapidly expanding and evolving technology. Tools such as... more
Aug 1, 2010
The latest edition of the Arizona Geological Survey's online Arizona Geology magazine has a nice article on recent applications of airborne and terrestrial LiDAR to geoscience research in Arizona written by David Haddad, a graduate student in ASU's Active Tectonics, Quantitative Structural Geology and Geomorphology research group. For his MS research, David used LiDAR data from both airborne and terrestrial platforms to characterize the geomorphic settings of precariously balanced rocks in the Granite Dells near Prescott, AZ. Precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) can be used as negative... more
Jul 30, 2010
The following workshop, to be held September 23 and 24, 2010 at the USGS-Denver Federal Center, may be of interest to the OpenTopography community and researchers working on geoinformatics:
Workshops on Interoperability/Technology and Education/Outreach aspects of Geoinformatics - working towards a National Geoinformatics Community
Workshop overview:
Building on the experience gathered from previous workshops on geoinformatics, the academic community has the opportunity to be directly involved in planning and coordinating future efforts in geoinformatics research and learning. The... more
Jul 21, 2010
A press release from NASA yesterday highlights the first global map of forest canopy heights created from ICESat LiDAR and MODIS data. The map, produced by Dr. Michael Lefsky at Colorado State University, is the first of its kind generated with a uniform methodology and has important applications for developing global carbon budgets. Specifically, the map "will help scientists build an inventory of how much carbon the world's forests store and how fast that carbon cycles through ecosystems and back into the atmosphere".
The global ICESat LiDAR coverage allows this kind of... more
Jul 20, 2010
Yet another session at the 2010 Geological Society of America Meeting in Denver that may be of interest to the OpenTopography community. Announcement via the GEOMOD-LIDAR-L list:
Good afternoon,
We would like to call your attention to a topical session (oral) at the national GSA meeting in Denver in October:
T145. Virtual Tectonics
GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Geoscience Education Division; GSA Geoinformatics Division; GSA Geology and Society Division; National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Declan G. De Paor, S.J Whitmeyer
Application of virtual reality to... more
Jun 25, 2010
This GSA 2010 LiDAR session announcement went out this morning via various listservs. This session, coupled with the accompanying Pardee Keynote Symposium and the Terrestrial Laser Scanning: Applications in Geology and Geomorphology session that was announced previously, means that GSA is shaping up to be a great meeting for Earth science applications of LiDAR. I'll be giving a talk in the Pardee session. Hope to see you there!
We would like to draw your attention to the following Topical Session at the 2010 GSA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado (Oct. 31st - Nov. 3rd):
T32. Seeing... more