A team from NCALM recently traveled to Ensenada, Mexico, in Baja California, to scan the Agua Blanca Fault. Several miles of the fault were mapped for collaborating researchers from CICESE (Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education) and the University of Texas. The processed data will be used to study the surface and displacement of the fault. An article about the project from CICESE is available here. (Click here to read the original version in Spanish.)

Additionally, during the spring, NCALM flew several missions over a two-week period in the Mexican states of Campeche, Veracruz, and Merida. Multiple Mesoamerican archaeological sites were surveyed for anthropological researchers.

Archaeological Results from NCALM LiDAR Data Presented at the Society for American Archeology (SAA) 79th Annual Meeting held in Austin, TX, April 23-27, 2014:

Results from airborne LiDAR mapping projects undertaken by NCALM, including the 2009, 2011, and 2013 Belize, 2010 Chaco Canyon, 2012 Honduras, and 2013 Mayapan projects, were presented in two different sessions at the SAA meeting. The results from Chaco Canyon were presented by 2010 NCALM seed grantee Wetherbee Dorshow from the University of New Mexico, in symposium 295, entitled "Recent Applications and Innovation in Archaeological Remote Sensing." Symposium 337, entitled "The Use of LiDAR in Mesoamerican Archeology: New Approaches to Settlement and Research," featured presentations by archaeologists Arlen Chase, Timothy Hare, Christopher Fisher, Keith Prufer, and Adrian Chase. In addition, NCALM had presentations by Juan C. Fernandez-Diaz and Ramesh Shrestha, who also served as discussants for that session.

A three-person NCALM field team was deployed to New Zealand between March 6 and March 24, 2014, to perform an airborne LiDAR survey of five fault segments of the Marlborough Fault System (Eastern Clarence, Western Clarence, Central Eastern Awatere, West Wairau, and East Hope-Conway), on the northwestern portion of New Zealand’s South Island. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation for principal investigator James Dolan from USC who, in conjunction with collaborators Ed Rhodes, Chris McGuire (both from UCLA), Robert Langridge, and Russ Van Dissen (both from GNS Science, New Zealand), are working to understand how regional fault networks distribute deformation in time and space – thus attempting to explain emergent phenomena such as earthquake clusters and strain transients.

NCALM mapped 250 linear km of the fault system with a 1.2 km nominal swath width, and a shot density of ≥ 12 shots/m². This took six flights, with a total flight time of approximately 30 hr (including mobilization from and back to the airplane base in Hastings, NZ). The total laser-on-time (LOT) for the project was 13.4 hr, during which 5.16 billion laser shots were fired. NCALM staff is currently processing the raw navigation and LiDAR data to produce project deliverables.

During the last day of flying, project PI James Dolan, his collaborator Russ Van Dissen, and two USC graduate students, stopped by the Blenheim Airport to look at the LiDAR equipment mounted on the airplane, and see a preview of the LiDAR data. The photograph above was taken during their visit. From left to right: NZAM pilot Brian Umbers, Jessica Grenader (USC graduate student), Robert Zinke (USC graduate student), James Dolan (USC), and Russ Van Dissen (GNS Science, New Zealand).

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