Aerial Thermography of Archaeological Sites
Oct 1st, 2009 by Leo A. Geis
Here’s an image from our recent aerial thermography assignment over a site of suspected archaeological importance near the Snake River in central Idaho.
It was shot about 45 minutes after sunset-we were navigating by GPS, not sight. This low-resolution version is reduced significantly from the original image so-unfortunately-you won’t be able to see the important “micro-details” that we were after.
Click on the image for a larger version.
The following image is an orthogonal (vertical) thermographic mosaic along a water feature-there is a cutout window showing visible band imaging underlay. Use the controls along the base of the image window to zoom into and pan around in the image itself. The smaller version to the lower left of the large one will display a blue box indicating where in the image you are viewing (you can use your mouse to move that blue box).
This demonstrates the nearly perfect overlay of the thermographic image over the visible band base. The visible band was originally shot at <1" pixels (2cm).
This was a cooperative project with our friends at Valley Air Photo in Caldwell, Idaho. Please give their website a visit and familiarize yourself with their services-they’re wonderful to work with.
L