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Lasers Help Discover Lost City

By Francie Diep, InnovationNewsDaily staff writer

Credit: The University of Houston and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping

View of a rainforest in Honduras. Laser mapping scientists flew over a remote part of the forest and discovered what appear to be ruins. The next step is to visit the ruins in person to determine their age.

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    Data on topology from the LiDAR flyover in Honduras.

    (The University of Houston and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping)

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June 7, 2012 Updated Jun 7, 2012 at 1:48 PM PDT

Underneath the thick, virgin rainforest cover in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, archaeologists have discovered ruins they think may be the lost city of Ciudad Blanca. Legends say the "White City" is full of gold, which is why conquistador Hernando Cortes was among the first Ciudad Blanca seekers in the 1500s. But the method the modern researchers used was a little different from previous explorers' techniques. The modern-day researchers flew over the area in a small plane and shot billions of laser pulses at the ground, creating a 3D digital map of the topology underneath the trees.

This is one of the first times this technique, called light detection and ranging (LiDAR), has been used to map ancient ruins. Beyond archaeology, LiDAR researchers at the National Science Foundation are looking to develop the technology for mapping disasters using drones, for military spying and for tracking erosion under rivers and shallow parts of the ocean.

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