0:00:01.953,0:00:06.359
The most astounding place I've ever been[br]is the Mosquitia Rain Forest in Honduras.

0:00:07.268,0:00:09.840
I've done archaeological fieldwork[br]all over the world,

0:00:09.864,0:00:12.951
so I thought I knew what to expect[br]venturing into the jungle,

0:00:12.975,0:00:14.416
but I was wrong.

0:00:14.861,0:00:17.053
For the first time[br]in my life, I might add.

0:00:17.635,0:00:19.386
(Laughter)

0:00:20.172,0:00:22.335
First of all, it's freezing.

0:00:22.359,0:00:25.668
It's 90 degrees, but you're[br]soaking wet from the humidity,

0:00:25.692,0:00:30.235
and the canopy of trees is so thick[br]that sunlight never reaches the surface.

0:00:30.259,0:00:32.010
You can't get dry.

0:00:32.034,0:00:35.488
Immediately, I knew that[br]I hadn't brought enough clothing.

0:00:36.507,0:00:41.039
That first night, I kept feeling things[br]moving underneath my hammock,

0:00:41.063,0:00:45.579
unknown creatures brushing and poking[br]against the thin nylon fabric.

0:00:46.141,0:00:49.185
And I could barely sleep[br]through all the noise.

0:00:49.209,0:00:51.444
The jungle is loud. It's shockingly loud.

0:00:51.468,0:00:54.242
It's like being downtown[br]in a bustling city.

0:00:55.035,0:00:56.277
As the night wore on,

0:00:56.301,0:00:59.781
I became increasingly frustrated[br]with my sleeplessness,

0:00:59.805,0:01:01.666
knowing I had a full day ahead.

0:01:02.467,0:01:04.614
When I finally got up at dawn,

0:01:04.638,0:01:07.287
my sense of unseen things[br]was all too real.

0:01:07.772,0:01:09.817
There were hoofprints, paw prints,

0:01:09.841,0:01:12.823
linear snake tracks everywhere.

0:01:13.308,0:01:15.577
And what's even more shocking,

0:01:15.601,0:01:17.863
we saw those same animals in the daylight,

0:01:17.887,0:01:20.189
and they were completely unafraid of us.

0:01:20.688,0:01:23.300
They had no experience with people.

0:01:23.324,0:01:25.503
They had no reason to be afraid.

0:01:26.757,0:01:30.880
As I walked toward the undocumented city,[br]my reason for being there,

0:01:30.904,0:01:34.318
I realized that this was the only place[br]that I had ever been

0:01:34.342,0:01:36.815
where I didn't see[br]a single shred of plastic.

0:01:37.467,0:01:39.331
That's how remote it was.

0:01:40.371,0:01:42.204
Perhaps it's surprising to learn

0:01:42.228,0:01:47.059
that there are still places on our planet[br]that are so untouched by people,

0:01:47.083,0:01:48.329
but it's true.

0:01:48.892,0:01:53.130
There are still hundreds of places[br]where people haven't stepped for centuries

0:01:53.154,0:01:54.615
or maybe forever.

0:01:56.892,0:02:00.070
It's an awesome time[br]to be an archaeologist.

0:02:00.094,0:02:02.809
We have the tools and the technology

0:02:02.833,0:02:05.740
to understand our planet[br]like never before.

0:02:06.355,0:02:08.263
And yet, we're running out of time.

0:02:08.867,0:02:14.753
The climate crisis threatens to destroy[br]our ecological and cultural patrimony.

0:02:15.500,0:02:17.810
I feel an urgency to my work

0:02:17.834,0:02:20.037
that I didn't feel 20 years ago.

0:02:20.647,0:02:23.875
How can we document everything[br]before it's too late?

0:02:25.462,0:02:27.610
I was trained as[br]a traditional archaeologist

0:02:27.634,0:02:30.940
using methodologies that[br]have been around since the '50s.

0:02:31.650,0:02:34.709
That all changed in July of 2009

0:02:34.733,0:02:36.744
in Michoacán, Mexico.

0:02:36.768,0:02:39.104
I was studying the ancient[br]Purépecha Empire,

0:02:39.128,0:02:42.229
which is a lesser known[br]but equally important contemporary

0:02:42.253,0:02:43.519
of the Aztec.

0:02:43.924,0:02:48.222
Two weeks earlier, my team[br]had documented an unknown settlement,

0:02:48.246,0:02:54.172
so we were painstakingly mapping,[br]building foundations by hand --

0:02:54.196,0:02:55.666
hundreds of them.

0:02:56.450,0:03:00.179
Basic archaeological protocol[br]is to find the edge of a settlement

0:03:00.203,0:03:02.074
so you know what you're dealing with,

0:03:02.098,0:03:05.216
and my graduate students[br]convinced me to do just that.

0:03:06.020,0:03:10.092
So I grabbed a couple of CLIF Bars,[br]some water, a walkie,

0:03:10.116,0:03:12.176
and I set out alone on foot,

0:03:12.200,0:03:15.732
expecting to encounter "the edge"[br]in just a few minutes.

0:03:16.151,0:03:17.905
A few minutes passed.

0:03:17.929,0:03:19.503
And then an hour.

0:03:19.527,0:03:22.005
Finally, I reached[br]the other side of the malpais.

0:03:22.483,0:03:26.571
Oh, there were ancient[br]building foundations all the way across.

0:03:27.139,0:03:28.812
It's a city?

0:03:28.836,0:03:30.209
Oh, shit.

0:03:30.233,0:03:31.235
(Laughter)

0:03:31.259,0:03:32.444
It's a city.

0:03:33.605,0:03:36.735
Turns out that this[br]seemingly small settlement

0:03:36.759,0:03:39.815
was actually an ancient urban megalopolis,

0:03:39.839,0:03:42.648
26 square kilometers in size,

0:03:42.672,0:03:46.917
with as many building foundations[br]as modern-day Manhattan,

0:03:46.941,0:03:49.801
an archaeological settlement so large

0:03:49.825,0:03:52.997
that it would take me[br]decades to survey fully,

0:03:53.021,0:03:55.055
the entire rest of my career,

0:03:55.985,0:04:01.329
which was exactly how I didn't want[br]to spend the entire rest of my career --

0:04:01.353,0:04:02.964
(Laughter)

0:04:02.988,0:04:05.470
sweating, exhausted,

0:04:05.494,0:04:08.481
placating stressed-out[br]graduate students --

0:04:08.505,0:04:09.894
(Laughter)

0:04:09.918,0:04:12.733
tossing scraps of PB and J sandwiches

0:04:12.757,0:04:14.136
to feral dogs,

0:04:14.160,0:04:16.008
which is pointless, by the way,

0:04:16.032,0:04:19.235
because Mexican dogs[br]really don't like peanut butter.

0:04:19.259,0:04:20.910
(Laughter)

0:04:22.430,0:04:25.486
Just the thought of it bored me to tears.

0:04:26.065,0:04:27.724
So I returned home to Colorado,

0:04:27.748,0:04:30.328
and I poked my head[br]through a colleague's door.

0:04:30.352,0:04:33.494
"Dude, there's gotta be a better way."

0:04:34.122,0:04:37.059
He asked if I had heard[br]of this new technology called LiDAR --

0:04:37.083,0:04:38.537
Light Detection And Ranging.

0:04:38.561,0:04:39.926
I looked it up.

0:04:39.950,0:04:43.293
LiDAR involves shooting[br]a dense grid of laser pulses

0:04:43.317,0:04:46.122
from an airplane to the ground's surface.

0:04:46.146,0:04:49.090
What you end up with[br]is a high-resolution scan

0:04:49.114,0:04:51.238
of the earth's surface[br]and everything on it.

0:04:51.712,0:04:53.214
It's not an image,

0:04:53.238,0:04:56.662
but instead it's a dense,[br]three-dimensional plot of points.

0:04:57.236,0:04:59.541
We had enough money in the scan,

0:04:59.565,0:05:01.327
so we did just that.

0:05:01.351,0:05:02.888
The company went to Mexico,

0:05:02.912,0:05:04.217
they flew the LiDAR

0:05:04.241,0:05:05.886
and they sent back the data.

0:05:06.554,0:05:10.733
Over the next several months, I learned[br]to practice digital deforestation,

0:05:10.757,0:05:14.426
filtering away trees, brush[br]and other vegetation

0:05:14.450,0:05:17.557
to reveal the ancient[br]cultural landscape below.

0:05:18.338,0:05:20.787
When I looked at my first visualization,

0:05:20.811,0:05:22.087
I began to cry,

0:05:23.010,0:05:25.175
which I know comes[br]as quite a shock to you,

0:05:25.199,0:05:27.131
given how manly I must seem.

0:05:27.155,0:05:28.993
(Laughter)

0:05:30.126,0:05:32.316
In just 45 minutes of flying,

0:05:32.340,0:05:35.134
the LiDAR had collected[br]the same amount of data

0:05:35.158,0:05:38.083
as what would have taken decades by hand:

0:05:38.107,0:05:39.637
every house foundation,

0:05:39.661,0:05:42.274
building, road and pyramid,

0:05:42.298,0:05:44.330
incredible detail,

0:05:44.354,0:05:47.600
representing the lives[br]of thousands of people

0:05:47.624,0:05:50.809
who lived and loved and died[br]in these spaces.

0:05:51.390,0:05:54.565
And what's more, the quality of the data

0:05:54.589,0:05:57.640
wasn't comparable to traditional[br]archaeological research.

0:05:58.442,0:06:00.398
It was much, much better.

0:06:01.181,0:06:05.446
I knew that this technology would change[br]the entire field of archaeology

0:06:05.470,0:06:07.099
in the coming years,

0:06:07.123,0:06:08.424
and it did.

0:06:10.376,0:06:13.432
Our work came to the attention[br]of a group of filmmakers

0:06:13.456,0:06:16.361
who were searching for a legendary[br]lost city in Honduras.

0:06:16.965,0:06:18.352
They failed in their quest,

0:06:18.376,0:06:21.959
but they instead documented[br]an unknown culture,

0:06:21.983,0:06:26.331
now buried under a pristine[br]wilderness rain forest,

0:06:26.355,0:06:27.710
using LiDAR.

0:06:28.789,0:06:30.643
I agreed to help interpret their data,

0:06:30.667,0:06:34.582
which is how I found myself deep[br]in that Mosquitia jungle,

0:06:34.606,0:06:37.886
plastic-free and filled[br]with curious animals.

0:06:39.085,0:06:42.150
Our goal was to verify[br]that the archaeological features

0:06:42.174,0:06:44.113
we identified in our LiDAR

0:06:44.137,0:06:45.904
were actually there on the ground,

0:06:45.928,0:06:47.134
and they were.

0:06:48.871,0:06:53.563
Eleven months later, I returned[br]with a crack team of archaeologists

0:06:53.587,0:06:56.425
sponsored by the[br]National Geographic Society

0:06:56.449,0:06:57.932
and the Honduran government.

0:06:58.332,0:07:01.639
In a month, we excavated over 400 objects

0:07:01.663,0:07:04.549
from what we now call[br]the City of the Jaguar.

0:07:05.678,0:07:10.843
We felt a moral and ethical responsibility[br]to protect this site as it was,

0:07:10.867,0:07:13.088
but in the short time that we were there,

0:07:13.112,0:07:15.037
things inevitably changed.

0:07:15.431,0:07:19.841
The tiny gravel bar where we first[br]landed our helicopter was gone.

0:07:20.507,0:07:23.273
The brush had been cleared away[br]and the trees removed

0:07:23.297,0:07:27.083
to create a large landing zone[br]for several helicopters at once.

0:07:27.654,0:07:28.818
Without it,

0:07:28.842,0:07:31.164
after just one rainy season,

0:07:31.188,0:07:34.553
the ancient canals that we[br]had seen in our LiDAR scan

0:07:34.577,0:07:36.273
were damaged or destroyed.

0:07:36.942,0:07:40.721
And the Eden I described[br]soon had a large clearing,

0:07:40.745,0:07:42.096
central camp,

0:07:42.120,0:07:43.291
lights

0:07:43.315,0:07:44.765
and an outdoor chapel.

0:07:45.494,0:07:49.633
In other words, despite our best efforts[br]to protect the site as it was,

0:07:50.410,0:07:51.716
things changed.

0:07:52.335,0:07:56.838
Our initial LiDAR scan[br]of this City of the Jaguar

0:07:56.862,0:08:02.220
is the only record of this place[br]as it existed just a few years ago.

0:08:03.609,0:08:05.055
And broadly speaking,

0:08:05.079,0:08:07.309
this is a problem for archaeologists.

0:08:07.758,0:08:10.880
We can't study an area[br]without changing it somehow,

0:08:10.904,0:08:13.954
and regardless, the earth is changing.

0:08:13.978,0:08:16.325
Archaeological sites are destroyed.

0:08:16.924,0:08:18.579
History is lost.

0:08:19.603,0:08:22.075
Just this year, we watched in horror

0:08:22.099,0:08:25.176
as the Notre Dame Cathedral[br]went up in flames.

0:08:25.200,0:08:27.442
The iconic spire collapsed,

0:08:27.466,0:08:29.365
and the roof was all but destroyed.

0:08:29.909,0:08:34.294
Miraculously, the art historian[br]Andrew Tallon and colleagues

0:08:34.318,0:08:37.200
scanned the cathedral in 2010 using LiDAR.

0:08:37.827,0:08:41.791
At the time, their goal was to understand[br]how the building was constructed.

0:08:42.537,0:08:47.222
Now, their LiDAR scan is the most[br]comprehensive record of the cathedral,

0:08:47.246,0:08:49.960
and it'll prove invaluable[br]in the reconstruction.

0:08:51.095,0:08:53.470
They couldn't have anticipated the fire

0:08:53.494,0:08:55.549
or how their scan would be used,

0:08:55.573,0:08:57.097
but we're lucky to have it.

0:08:57.902,0:09:01.037
We take for granted that our cultural[br]and ecological patrimony

0:09:01.061,0:09:02.367
will be around forever.

0:09:02.893,0:09:04.094
It won't.

0:09:04.616,0:09:07.715
Organizations like SCI-Arc[br]and Virtual Wonders

0:09:07.739,0:09:09.985
are doing incredible work

0:09:10.009,0:09:12.742
to record the world's historic monuments,

0:09:13.678,0:09:16.984
but nothing similar exists[br]for the earth's landscapes.

0:09:17.618,0:09:20.491
We've lost 50 percent of our rain forests.

0:09:20.515,0:09:23.426
We lose 18 million acres[br]of forest every year.

0:09:23.965,0:09:29.405
And rising sea levels will make cities,[br]countries and continents

0:09:29.429,0:09:31.357
completely unrecognizable.

0:09:32.073,0:09:34.723
Unless we have a record of these places,

0:09:34.747,0:09:37.224
no one in the future[br]will know they existed.

0:09:38.182,0:09:40.340
If the earth is the Titanic,

0:09:40.364,0:09:42.213
we've struck the iceberg,

0:09:42.237,0:09:43.767
everyone's on deck

0:09:43.791,0:09:45.524
and the orchestra is playing.

0:09:46.183,0:09:50.957
The climate crisis threatens to destroy[br]our cultural and ecological patrimony

0:09:50.981,0:09:52.404
within decades.

0:09:52.786,0:09:55.272
But sitting on our hands and doing nothing

0:09:55.296,0:09:56.821
is not an option.

0:09:57.525,0:10:00.597
Shouldn't we save everything[br]we can on the lifeboats?

0:10:01.357,0:10:07.438
(Applause)

0:10:09.754,0:10:13.217
Looking at my scans[br]from Honduras and Mexico,

0:10:13.241,0:10:16.550
it's clear that we need[br]to scan, scan, scan

0:10:16.574,0:10:18.981
now as much as possible,

0:10:19.005,0:10:20.430
while we still can.

0:10:21.128,0:10:23.622
That's what inspired the Earth Archive,

0:10:23.646,0:10:26.283
an unprecedented scientific effort

0:10:26.307,0:10:29.027
to LiDAR-scan the entire planet,

0:10:29.051,0:10:31.343
starting with areas[br]that are most threatened.

0:10:32.226,0:10:34.234
Its purpose is threefold.

0:10:34.717,0:10:40.258
Number one: create a baseline record[br]of the earth as it exists today

0:10:40.282,0:10:43.105
to more effectively mitigate[br]the climate crisis.

0:10:43.930,0:10:46.550
To measure change, you need[br]two sets of data:

0:10:46.574,0:10:48.797
a before and an after.

0:10:49.440,0:10:53.577
Right now, we don't have[br]a high-resolution before data set

0:10:53.601,0:10:55.489
for much of the planet,

0:10:55.513,0:10:57.454
so we can't measure change,

0:10:57.478,0:11:00.130
and we can't evaluate[br]which of our current efforts

0:11:00.154,0:11:02.446
to combat the climate crisis

0:11:02.470,0:11:04.392
are making a positive impact.

0:11:05.742,0:11:09.765
Number two: create a virtual planet

0:11:10.718,0:11:14.843
so that any number of scientists[br]can study our earth today.

0:11:15.365,0:11:19.195
Archaeologists like me[br]can look for undocumented settlements.

0:11:19.563,0:11:22.194
Ecologists can study tree size,

0:11:22.218,0:11:24.257
forest composition and age.

0:11:24.895,0:11:27.194
Geologists can study hydrology,

0:11:27.218,0:11:28.942
faults, disturbance.

0:11:29.688,0:11:31.192
The possibilities are endless.

0:11:32.422,0:11:35.632
Number three: preserve[br]a record of the planet

0:11:35.656,0:11:38.239
for our grandchildren's grandchildren,

0:11:38.263,0:11:43.934
so they can reconstruct and study[br]lost cultural patrimony in the future.

0:11:44.808,0:11:47.560
As science and technology advance,

0:11:47.584,0:11:50.754
they'll apply new tools, algorithms,

0:11:50.778,0:11:54.524
even AI to LiDAR scans done today,

0:11:54.548,0:11:58.355
and ask questions that we[br]can't currently conceive of.

0:11:59.513,0:12:01.280
Like Notre Dame,

0:12:01.304,0:12:05.496
we can't imagine how these[br]records will be used.

0:12:06.035,0:12:08.599
But we know that they'll[br]be critically important.

0:12:10.053,0:12:14.126
The Earth Archive is the ultimate gift[br]to future generations,

0:12:15.126,0:12:16.591
because the truth be told,

0:12:17.638,0:12:19.966
I won't live long enough[br]to see its full impact,

0:12:20.902,0:12:22.331
and neither will you.

0:12:23.505,0:12:26.027
That's exactly why it's worth doing.

0:12:27.218,0:12:30.642
The Earth Archive is a bet[br]on the future of humanity.

0:12:31.150,0:12:33.307
It's a bet that together,

0:12:33.331,0:12:34.948
collectively,

0:12:34.972,0:12:38.039
as people and as scientists,

0:12:38.063,0:12:40.770
that we'll face the climate crisis

0:12:40.794,0:12:42.994
and that we'll choose[br]to do the right thing,

0:12:43.915,0:12:45.845
not just for us today

0:12:46.932,0:12:49.878
but to honor those who came before us

0:12:49.902,0:12:54.257
and to pay it forward[br]to future generations

0:12:54.281,0:12:56.563
who will carry on our legacy.

0:12:57.373,0:12:58.539
Thank you.

0:12:58.903,0:13:01.388
(Applause)