OpenTopography Blog

Information and discussion related to high-resolution LiDAR topography for the Earth sciences

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Category: News

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2011 NCALM Graduate Student Seed Proposal Call Open

Posted on Tue, September 06, 2011 by Chris Crosby in Data • Education • News

Ramesh Shrestha, Director of the NSF National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) has announced NCALM’s annual call for proposals to their graduate student seed project program.  This program collects LiDAR data for up to ten graduate student PIs who require data for their research. Data collection is typically limited to 40 km² per project and must be targeted at a basic research question in the geosciences.  The proposal deadline is November 1, 2011.  Email announcement:

The National Center for Airborne Laser mapping (NCALM) invites SEED proposals from Graduate Students PIs who need Airborne Laser Swath mapping (ALSM) data (generally covering no more than 40 square kilometers). Proposals must define a basic research question in the geosciences (broadly defined). No financial support is provided to the student, but it is hoped that the data from projects selected in this program will enable new research opportunities and lead to successful proposals for future research. Detail can be found by clicking the link below.

http://www.ncalm.cive.uh.edu/content/seedproposals.html

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Lidar at GSA 2011 Meeting

Posted on Sat, July 23, 2011 by Chris Crosby in Education • Meetings • News

The Geological Society of America annual meeting abstract deadline of July 26th, 2011 is fast approaching.  Below are sessions and short courses at the GSA 2011 meeting in Minneapolis that will focus on lidar data in the Earth sciences:

Topical Sessions:

T114. Measuring the True Shape of the Earth: Quantitative and Qualitative Applications of Terrestrial LiDAR
GSA Archaeological Geology Division; GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Geoinformatics Division; GSA Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division; GSA Environmental and Engineering Geology Division
Ian P. Madin, Donald E. Luman

This session will focus on new efforts and approaches to extracting quantitative and qualitative geologic and environmental features from terrestrial LiDAR data.

Engineering Geology; Environmental Geoscience; Geomorphology

T149. Virtual Reality in Geoscience Education (Digital Posters)
GSA Geoscience Education Division; GSA Geoscience Education Division; GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Geoinformatics Division; GSA Planetary Geology Division; National Association of Geoscience Teachers; Google Inc.; Oxford University Press; Minnesota Planetarium Society
Declan G. De Paor, Steven J. Whitmeyer, John E. Bailey

Showcase your geo-visualizations using the medium of the future - the digital poster session. Presenters will hook up their own PC/Mac laptops to one of 20 flat screens.
This session covers virtual reality in formal and informal geoscience education at all levels: Google Earth, OmniGlobe, LiDAR, GigaPan, full-dome digital planetaria, caves, and resources for handheld devices, such as iPads and smart phones.

Geoscience Education; Geoinformatics; Structural Geology

T197. Seeing the True Shape of Earth: Quantitative and Qualitative Applications of Airborne Lidar
GSA Archaeological Geology Division; GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Geoinformatics Division; GSA Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division; GSA Environmental and Engineering Geology Division
Ian P. Madin, D.E. Luman

This session will focus on new efforts and approaches to extract quantitative and qualitative geologic and environmental features from terrestrial and airborne LiDAR data.

Geoinformatics; Remote Sensing/Geographic Info System; Quaternary Geology

Short Courses:

510. Terrestrial Laser Scanning (Ground-Based LiDAR) Methods and Applications in Geologic Research and Education.
Sat., 8 Oct., 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
$33; includes lunch. Limit: 20. CEU: 0.9.
Cosponsor: UNAVCO.
David Phillips, UNAVCO; John Oldow, Univ. of Texas at Dallas; Carlos Aiken, Univ. of Texas at Dallas.

This course will present terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), also known as ground-based LiDAR, workflows and best practices for the acquisition and processing of TLS data; an overview of various TLS platforms; and examples of science and education applications. This one-day workshop will consist of lectures and hands-on application of TLS equipment and data processing. TLS provides very high-resolution images over relatively small areas, is relatively inexpensive to acquire and has been used successfully to support a wide range of geoscience investigations, from outcrop mapping to deformation monitoring. Limited financial support is available for students.

514. Introduction to the Acquisition, Visualization, and Interpretation of Airborne LiDAR Data.
Sat., 8 Oct., 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
$110. Limit: 30. CEU: 0.9.
Cosponsors: OpenTopography; GSA Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division; GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Environmental and Engineering Geology Division; GSA Geoinformatics Divisions.
Ian Madin, Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries; Chris Crosby, Univ. of California at San Diego.

This course provides and introduction to the acquisition and use of airborne LiDAR data. It covers LiDAR collection fundamentals, how to contract for good data, where to find data and tools, how to visualize point and grid data, and how to do simple feature extraction from LiDAR-derived DEMs. The course will use ESRI ArcGIS and USFS Fusion software, and each student will have a dedicated workstation and real world data to use in hands-on exercises.

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Remembering Kurt Frankel

Posted on Tue, July 05, 2011 by Chris Crosby in News

Dr. Kurt Frankel was killed on July 2, 2011 while on a bicycle ride in northern Florida. This is unbelievably tragic and very sad news. Our thoughts and great memories of him go out to his family, friends and colleagues.  The memorial below has been distributed via email to the Earth science community by several of his colleagues.

Kurt shared our enthusiasm for tectonics and geomorphology especially when viewed with the fine lens of high-resolution topography. Kurt was an advocate for OpenTopography and was very active in the Earth science lidar community.  He organized several high-profile sessions on high-resolution topography, faulting and tectonic geomorphology at recent national meetings, and was the chair of the steering committee for the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping.  We have submitted papers to a special issue of Geosphere on lidar topography that he and Ian Madin were editing. Kurt also was working with us to build bridges between NCALM and OpenTopography with a real sense of advancing the community of scientific users of these data by establishing strong collaboration between the two endeavors.

We feel fortunate to have spoken with Kurt just last week during a phone conference where his deep voice, calming sense of humor, and positive outlook were evident and appreciated.

While Kurt was ambitious and confident, he was also modest, serious, and kind. Running into Kurt at meetings and workshop was always a treat, and it was great to talk science as well as to swap jokes, gossip and stories.

Kurt was a great guy and we will miss him immensely.

Respectfully,

J Ramon Arrowsmith and Christopher J. Crosby

Dear Colleagues,

It is with sadness that we write to inform you of the untimely passing of Kurt L. Frankel, Assistant Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA.  Kurt was killed during a morning bicycle ride this past Saturday (02 July) when he was struck from behind by a motorist. Kurt was 33 years old.

Kurt was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio.  He earned a B.S. in Geology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2000, followed by a M.S. in Earth and Environmental Science at Lehigh University in 2002, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 2007. Since then he has been in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Technological Institute in Atlanta, GA.

Kurt’s research focused on tectonic geomorphology and cosmogenic geochronology.  He worked extensively in the Great Basin, California, Turkey, Italy, Mongolia, and the Appalachians.  His undergraduate thesis described the slip of several Holocene fault scarps in Death Valley, California. For his M.S. work he developed a set of mountain front topographic metrics to quantify the long-term slip rates of normal-fault-bound mountain fronts.  His Ph.D. work involved novel applications of LiDAR and cosmogenic dating to compare geologic and GPS-geodetic rates of slip in the Eastern California Shear Zone.  During his short, but prolific career, Kurt organized field trips, co-directed two Keck undergraduate projects, chaired meeting topical sessions, was on the steering committee for NCALM, served on an NSF panel, published widely in international journals, and was in the process of building a nationally-recognized program in tectonic geomorphology at Georgia Tech.

Kurt was a field geologist who loved the outdoors.  He was an avid runner, biker, and hiker. For everyone who had the honor and pleasure of working with Kurt, he will be remembered for his infectious enthusiasm, quick laugh, and devotion to his projects, colleagues, and students.  He leaves behind his wife of two years, Stephanie Briggs, who he met and was committed to since their undergraduate days at UNC-CH.

Memorial contributions can be made in Kurt’s name to the Department of Geological Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, c/o Arts and Sciences Foundation, CB #6115, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-6115

Respectfully submitted by Karl W. Wegmann, Patrick W. Belmont, Frank J. Pazzaglia

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New Idaho Lidar Website

Posted on Wed, June 15, 2011 by Chris Crosby in Data • News

Nancy Glenn, director of Idaho State’s Boise Center Aerospace Lab (BCAL) and a member of the OpenTopography Advisory Committee, wrote to let us know about a new Idaho LiDAR Consortium website that her group has just released.  The website provides links to news about ILC activities, research, and software tools - including the BCAL lidar tools for ENVI.  The site provides a nice map interface to view ILC data coverage - including planned data collections - and to download data products such as DEMs for certain datasets.

OpenTopography is working with Nancy to ingest a portion of the ILC point cloud data into OpenTopography - the data are currently in our ingestion queue and we hope to have them online soon.

Screen cap - http://www.idaholidar.org/data:

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National Academy report on Precise Geodetic Infrastructure

Posted on Mon, November 22, 2010 by Chris Crosby in News • Publications

Earlier this month a National Research Council report entitled Precise Geodetic Infrastructure: National Requirements for a Shared Resource was published via the National Academies Press.  The report, authored by the National Research Council’s Committee on the National Requirements for Precision Geodetic Infrastructure and the Committee on Seismology and Geodynamics, is freely available in PDF format.

The emphasis of the report is on:

Recognizing the growing reliance of a wide range of scientific and societal endeavors on infrastructure for precise geodesy, and recognizing geodetic infrastructure as a shared national resource, this book provides an independent assessment of the benefits provided by geodetic observations and networks, as well as a plan for the future development and support of the infrastructure needed to meet the demand for increasingly greater precision. Precise Geodetic Infrastructure makes a series of focused recommendations for upgrading and improving specific elements of the infrastructure, for enhancing the role of the United States in international geodetic services, for evaluating the requirements for a geodetic workforce for the coming decades, and for providing national coordination and advocacy for the various agencies and organizations that contribute to the geodetic infrastructure.

Within the context of the types of LiDAR topography data emphasized by OpenTopography, the report highlights the importance of a strong geodetic infrastructure for topographic mapping, and specifically for providing the necessary control to produce high-accuracy (centimeter) LiDAR surveys.  Also highlighted in the report is the importance of precise geodetic infrastructure to allow LiDAR to be used in the future as a geodetic observing tool with millimeter accuracies (also requiring improvements in LiDAR ranging precision), for research and applications related to the coastal zone, wetlands, earthquake faults, landslides, flooding, ice sheet dynamics.  The report highlights LiDAR as a example of a rapidly progressing geodetic technology with significant societal impacts:

...many aspects of geodetic techniques, technologies, and data analysis are progressing rapidly today; such trends will likely persist in the foreseeable future. For example, societal applications of geodetic imaging, using active remote sensing tools such as radar and LiDAR with increasing spatial and temporal resolution and improving accuracy, will probably contribute powerfully to this progress.

Download the Precise Geodetic Infrastructure: National Requirements for a Shared Resource report from the National Academies Press.

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NOAA-Funded Project Mapping Offshore San Andreas Fault

Posted on Mon, October 04, 2010 by Chris Crosby in Data • News

A NOAA expedition that concluded this past Sunday focused on mapping the offshore extent of the San Andreas fault at high-resolution.  Using sonar mapping and other imaging and geophysical technologies, the NOAA-funded group, led by Chris Goldfinger from Oregon State University, is building a 3D model of the fault that they hope will reveal information about earthquake behavior as well as the role of the fault in undersea life:

While the fault on land is obscured by erosion, vegetation and urbanization in many places, scientists expect the subsea portion of the fault to include deep rifts and high walls, along with areas supporting animal life. The expedition team is using high-resolution sonar mapping, subsurface seismic data and imaging with digital cameras for the first-ever three-dimensional bathymetric-structural map that will model the undersea Northern San Andreas Fault and its structure. Little is known about the offshore fault due to perennial bad weather that has limited scientific investigations.

Combined with the existing high-resolution topography data collected along the San Andreas by the EarthScope project (and an earlier NASA/USGS funded project), there will now be a high-resolution model of fault geomorphology for the full length of the San Andreas, from near the Mexican border in Southern California, to the fault’s northern terminus at the Mendocino Triple Junction offshore Northern California. 

More information: ”NOAA-Sponsored Scientists First to Map Offshore San Andreas Fault and Associated Ecosystems”

Image via NOAA press release: ”Image courtesy of San Andreas Fault 2010 Expedition, NOAA-OER” Caption: ”This image shows the subsurface San Andreas Fault, approximately eight miles offshore Fort Bragg, Calif. The fault scarp, or step-like feature is 30-50 meters high. The depressions shown next to it, called “sag ponds” on land, result from small changes in the trend of the fault.”

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Call for NCALM Student LiDAR Seed Proposals

Posted on Mon, September 27, 2010 by Chris Crosby in Data • News • Research

The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) has issued their annual call for proposals to their graduate student seed project program.  This program collects LiDAR data for up to ten graduate student PIs who require data for their research. Data collection is typically limited to 40 km² per project and must be targeted at a basic research question in the Earth sciences.  Email announcement:

The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), invites proposals from graduate students seeking airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM) observations covering limited areas (no more than 40 square kilometers) for use in research to earn an M.S. or Ph.D. degree.  Proposals must be submitted online.  For background information and complete guidelines for submitting a proposal, please see http://www.ncalm.org.  The deadline date for proposal submission is November 1, 2010.  For more information contact NCALM@EGR.UH.EDU or call 832-842-8881

See http://www.ncalm.cive.uh.edu/content/seedproposals.html for more information

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Media coverage of El Mayor-Cucupah earthquake rupture LiDAR dataset

Posted on Thu, September 16, 2010 by Chris Crosby in 2010 Baja EQ • Data • News • Video

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 gathered by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping with funding from the National Science Foundation and SCEC.  Processing of these data is currently underway, and all data products will ultimately be freely available from OpenTopography.

Scarp from 2010 El Mayor-Cucupah earthquake:

Via Ramon Arrowsmith

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Geoscience Applications of High-Resolution Digital Topography in Arizona

Posted on Sun, August 01, 2010 by Chris Crosby in News • Publications • Research • TLS

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 indicators of strong ground motion caused by earthquakes, and their spatial distribution provides an indication of the intensity of ground shaking in a given location.  For more on PBRs, see David’s other Arizona Geology article: Nature’s Balanced Seismometers.

David’s article provides a nice overview of LiDAR technology, a few nice graphics like the one above, and a good intro to how these data have been applied to his PBR research in Arizona.

Arizona Geology article: High-Resolution Digital Topography in Arizona

Via: Lee Allison’s Arizona Geology blog

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Global Forest Heights Map From NASA LIDAR and MODIS Data

Posted on Wed, July 21, 2010 by Chris Crosby in News

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 comprehensive mapping of the forest height globally:

Lidar can capture vertical slices of forest canopy height by shooting pulses of light at the ground and observing how much longer it takes for light to bounce back from the surface than from the top of the forest canopy. Since lidar can penetrate the top layer of forest canopy, it provides a detailed snapshot of the vertical structure of a forest.

“Lidar is unparalleled for this type of measurement,” Lefsky said. “It would have taken weeks or more to collect the same amount of data in the field by counting and measuring tree trunks that lidar can capture in seconds.”

OpenTopography and partners from UNAVCO and the National Snow and Ice Data Center have funding from NASA to provide integrated access to existing NASA LiDAR data products from ICESat and LVIS, as well as on-demand processing capability, and enhanced QA/QC metrics to make these data more easily accessible and usable to a range of scientists.  Once implemented, access to these data will be available through the OpenTopography Portal.  Read more about the NASA LiDAR Access System (NLAS) project.

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