Detecting Earthworks
Shallow earthworks are often more visible as cropmarks or in aerial photographs if taken when the sun is low in the sky and shadows are more pronounced. Similarly, earthworks may be more visible after a frost or a light dusting of snow.
Earthworks can be detected an plotted using Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR). This technique is particularly useful for mapping small variations in land height that would be difficult to detect by eye. It can be used to map features beneath forest canopy and for features hidden by other vegetation. LIDAR results can be input into a Geographic Information System (GIS) which can then produce three dimensional representations of the earthworks.
Read more about this topic: Earthwork (archaeology)
Famous quotes containing the word detecting:
“In our Mechanics’ Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenter’s planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments,—rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander.”
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