See the Strange, Beautiful Landscapes Revealed by Lasers

A landslide covered with vegetation on Lummi Island near Bellingham, Washington is revealed with LIDAR.

The Quinault River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula has meandered extensively in the past, leaving behind dry, abandoned stream channels filled with river sediment that are revealed by LIDAR.

Old landslide scars on the Cedar River near Seattle are normally obscured by forest, but are plainly visible in this LIDAR image.

LIDAR shows the landscape around Hood Canal, a fjord in the Puget Sound, which is filled with elongated, rounded hills known as drumlins that were left behind by glaciers.

LIDAR outlines the precise edges of glaciers on Washington’s Mount Rainier that can be hard to distinguish from light coloured rock in an aerial photo.

Old lava flows from West Crater in the Cascade Range stand out in this LIDAR image.

The floodplain and dry, former channels of the Chehalis River in western Washington State are revealed by this LIDAR-based elevation map.

This LIDAR image shows the rock layers of the Chuckanut formation near Bellingham, Washington have been folded by tectonic forces. The landscape in this image is about 5 miles across.

The mysterious Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington are beautifully exposed in this LIDAR image. The origin of these mounds, which are 2 metres tall and 10 metres wide on average, is unclear and has been attributed to gophers, insects, wind, earthquakes, and the shrinking and swelling of clays.

Enormous ripples formed on the ground by major floods in eastern Washington are easily identified in this LIDAR image.

The trace of the Toe Jam fault on Washington’s Bainbridge Island is usually obscured by trees but shows up clearly running horizontally across this LIDAR image.

Channels in northwestern Washington formed when melting glaciers caused major floods. The channels are highlighted near the centre of this LIDAR image.