Lidar used to map Mexico earthquake

Daily Mail : An international team of geologists used lidar (light detection and ranging) to make a detailed scan of the damage to a 140-square-mile area in Mexico after it was hit by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake in April 2010. Working with the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (located in Houston, Texas), the geologists flew over the area near Mexicali, in northern Mexico, and bounced a stream of laser pulses off the ground. They used that data to create a detailed image of the landscape. Because the same area had been mapped with lidar in 2006 by the Mexican government, the geologists were able to create the most comprehensive before-and-after image to date of such a disaster zone. From the survey, they could see where the ground moved and by how much. “We can learn so much about how earthquakes work by studying fresh fault ruptures,” said Michael Oskin, of the University of California, Davis, and lead researcher on a paper published online in Science.