Lidar & lost cities

摘要

For decades, explorers have been searching for a lost Mayan city called Ciudad Blanca--the White City--deep in the nearly impenetrable, virgin jungle of Honduras' La Mosquitia region. A new book called "Jungleland" recounts a monthlong trek to find the legendary place, a trip plagued with despair, bugs, illness and danger. In the end, it is unclear whether the expedition found the spot or not. But the ruins of Ciudad Blanca may at last have been found, not by a weathered adventurer wielding a machete and maps, but by a low-flying Cessna 337 equipped with a red laser that maps surfaces beneath trees. Called lidar, for light detection and ranging, the three-dimensional laser-mapping technology is fast opening up the world to discovery and analysis like no other. It is providing valuable insight for archaeologists, climatologists -- and military planners.