Christopher T. Fisher, PhD, is an archaeologist, professor of anthropology at Colorado State University, and the founder of the Earth Archive.

We have archives of films, newspapers, even seeds—what if we could make one for the entire surface of the earth? Changes to the Earth’s biosphere have reached a critical mass and it is now clear that we can no longer halt these that are resulting from human-induced earth system modifications. The resulting climate crisis, coupled with human population growth and landuse changes, are fundamentally altering our planet and as a result we have a limited time to record the Earth’s surface and the distribution of biota. Here we call for a massive international effort to 3-D scan the entire land mass of the planet (29.2%) to create a digital Earth Archive to provide a comprehensive baseline database of the Earth’s surface, and everything on it, at a high resolution that is accessible to as many as possible. Drawing on his experience mapping an ancient city in the Honduran jungle, archaeologist Chris Fisher makes the case for scanning the whole planet with LiDAR—a technology that uses lasers shot from an airplane to map the ground—in order to preserve our cultural and ecological heritage. This will be a virtual presentation.

Guests are invited to join us in the Grand Hall, where they can watch the lecture live and ask questions.
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