The Earth Archive Initiative is an unprecedented scientific effort to create a digital twin of the entire surface of the Earth – and everything on it – before it’s too late. Join global academics, NGOs, public sector, and technology providers at the Earth Archive Virtual Congress (June 15-16, 2021) for updates and discussions on this unique project.
The Earth Archive is an emerging conservation initiative that is revolutionizing the fight against the climate crisis. By scanning the planet’s land surface with very high resolution lidar, the Earth Archive will create a true three-dimensional digital twin of our world — an open source, digital record of the Earth that will reflect the landscape exactly as it was at the time of scanning. With this endeavor, the Earth Archive is positioned to provide geospatial data that will serve as the baseline for understanding and exploring our world.
While our scope is the entire planet, we’ve tasked ourselves with first scanning areas that are not only most susceptible to change, but also
deep in value for understanding our past. The 2021 inaugural Earth Archive Congress is centered on our initial campaign to scan the entire Amazon Basin. The Amazon rainforest plays a monumental role
in the Earth’s climate, has an incredibly rich Indigenous history, and boasts a remarkable level of ecological diversity — but is vanishing before our eyes. With the ability to digitally preserve landscapes at any moment in time, very high resolution lidar can enhance archaeological, anthropological, and conservation studies and provide needed information to help advance sustainable development, as well as provide us with more groundbreaking revelations of the Amazon’s astounding past.
The Congress will connect researchers, students, NGOs, stakeholders, indigenous groups, governmental officials, and corporate interests to become partners in this groundbreaking effort. Expanding the global Earth Archive community in this way encourages all levels of society to collaborate on a project that could prove fundamental to a solution for climate change. Join us for this hybrid event to become part of this unprecedented initiative.
– Christopher Fisher PhD.
Archaeologist, Director of The Earth Archive
Professor of Anthropology, CSU
