Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

livescience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 59 posts

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#41

Post by rrival »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #31
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

If I was obscenely wealthy I'd do the same for the seas and oceans, there's got to be so many fascinating wrecks out there as well as natural formations we know nothing about yet that sonar could pick up. Shipwrecks often have a limited lifespan for things to be preserved too, for example there's very little left of Lusitania 's wreck that resembles a ship any more just a rusty debris field.

Saw Sarah Parcak speak on this at her book launch @ The Explorer's Club (https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Space-Future-Shapes-Past/...). The current, viable remote observation approach for shipwrecks is to use satellite photos of sand plume disturbances near beaches to hint at underwater features worth further exploration.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#42

Post by s1artibartfast »

soco wrote: post #21
lowkey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis [1], which has a growing body of evidence to support it, if true, would cause a great deal of embarrassment to mainstream archeologists. Is it possible that this is the reason they seek to smear Graham Hancock as a pseudo-archeologist? Notably, Hancock isn’t the only one to inquire about the Orion’s Belt and the fact that the pyramids in Egypt follow an identical orientation. Dr. C…

On the other hand, can one really keep an open mind to about any out-of-line idea just in case one of the thousands might turn out true? I'm not sure how this attitude could work, Hancock isn't even the looniest out there, so how do you decide where to draw the line? My question is not about one specific theory, but about the process: how exactly should one decide (for oneself, and for further investigation) which th…

One option is ask "will this adversely impact me or a loved one if I am wrong". IMHO, people unnecessary feel the need to have a conclusive opinion on most topics.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#43

Post by speed_spread »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

If you were to discover an alien spaceship laying under the ice in Antartica, for god's sake don't tell anyone and _don't dig it out_.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#44

Post by colomon »

maxerickson wrote: post #35
d--b wrote: post #22

Is there some kind of openstreetmap layer where lidar-surveyed sites are aggregated? It'd be nice

The US has 3dep, which is a USGS program to aggregate and publish various federal and state data. Not really the same thing you are talking about, and not global, but it can be fascinating to look at. You can see old logging railroads and things like that in Michigan, and trace them to where they collected and dumped into rivers.

Ooo, I'll have to look into that. I had a fun couple of days a few years ago comparing Google Maps satellite images from St Clair County, MI with the old maps which showed where the Interurban ran. It was really impressive how much you could still see the routes from above, even though the tracks were torn up 80+ years ago...

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#45

Post by nopassrecover »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

What would it take to leverage Starlink?

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#46

Post by mcdonje »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #31
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

If I was obscenely wealthy I'd do the same for the seas and oceans, there's got to be so many fascinating wrecks out there as well as natural formations we know nothing about yet that sonar could pick up. Shipwrecks often have a limited lifespan for things to be preserved too, for example there's very little left of Lusitania 's wreck that resembles a ship any more just a rusty debris field.

If I were tetrazzinily wealthy, I'd lidar the solar system. There's no telling what we'd find in the asteroids alone.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#47

Post by account42 »

speed_spread wrote: post #43
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #4

If I was a billionaire, I’d commission a lidar survey of the entire planet. The amount of stuff that seems to be hidden beneath forest and snow and mud and ocean is absurd.

If you were to discover an alien spaceship laying under the ice in Antartica, for god's sake don't tell anyone and _don't dig it out_.

Resistance is futile.

Re: Lidar Reveals 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rain Forest

#49

Post by maxerickson »

colomon wrote: post #44
maxerickson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has 3dep, which is a USGS program to aggregate and publish various federal and state data. Not really the same thing you are talking about, and not global, but it can be fascinating to look at. You can see old logging railroads and things like that in Michigan, and trace them to where they collected and dumped into rivers.

Ooo, I'll have to look into that. I had a fun couple of days a few years ago comparing Google Maps satellite images from St Clair County, MI with the old maps which showed where the Interurban ran. It was really impressive how much you could still see the routes from above, even though the tracks were torn up 80+ years ago...

The resolution can vary a lot. Michigan tends to have a lot of very nice data because NOAA has recently been doing scans of the Great Lake shorelines.
Post reply on HN