Data Available in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida and Missouri
OpenTopography has recently released six new datasets covering portions of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida and Missouri. Five of the datasets were collected by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) and are now available as part of an ongoing process to make NCALM data available through OpenTopography. The sixth dataset was collected for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) over the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), which spans the Arkansas/Missouri border.
National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM):
NCALM is an NSF-funded center that supports the use of airborne laser mapping technology (a.k.a. lidar) in the scientific community and is jointly operated by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California-Berkeley. Three of these datasets were collected under NCALM's graduate student seed proposal program that awards ten projects per year to graduate student PIs who need lidar data for their research. Each collection is typically limited to no more than 40 square kilometers. The release of these data via OpenTopography is the product of a memoranda of understanding (MOU) between OpenTopography and NCALM to make OT the primary distribution pathway for NCALM data.
- Grand Junction, CO: Roan Plateau
- Loma Mar, CA: Lidar survey of the San Jose Mountains
- Lake Placid, FL: Lidar Survey of the Archibold Biological Station
- Yosemite, CA: Spatial & Temporal Patterns of Nitrogen Export
- Yosemite, CA: El Portal, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Canyon & Tuolumne Meadows
United States Geological Survey: New Madrid Seismic Zone
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) oversaw the collection of lidar data of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, flown by Watershed Sciences. The motivation for this dataset acquisition focuses on the risk of another large destructive earthquake in this region of the United States and is of great concern to the USGS and local and federal authorities. Several large metropolitan areas (Memphis, Little Rock, Nashville, St. Louis), and hundreds of smaller communities lie in or near the NMSZ.
Hillshade model of the Roan Plateau, CO with background imagery from Google Earth. Taken from the Grand Junction, CO: Roan Plateau dataset. Oblique view looking North