EarthScope’s Laser Vision: Sharing Lidar Data article features OpenTopography

A new article - EarthScope’s Laser Vision: Sharing Lidar Data - by Beth Grassi of the EarthScope National Office includes a very nice review of the history of the EarthScope lidar project, the preceding B4 lidar project, and OpenTopography's pioneering role in making these datasets widely available to the Earth science community. The article also highlights lidar applications, including mapping the ground rupture associated with April 4th, 2010 El Mayor–Cucapah earthquake in Mexico (another EarthScope lidar dataset), and educational applications and resources for using these data in a classroom. OpenTopography co-founders Ramon Arrowsmith and Christopher Crosby are quoted. Read the article here.

Left: Lidar point cloud including vegetation. Right: bare earth hillshade of the same landform

List of related datasets:

• EarthScope lidar datasets: Southern & Eastern California; Yakima; Alaska Denali Totschunda; Intermountain Seismic Belt; Northern California
• B4 Lidar Project
• El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake (4 April 2010) Rupture Lidar Scan