Mayan style LIDAR treasure hunt in W PA

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

I find myself watching any treasure/outdoor adventure show in the evenings to unwind. Discovery, Nat Geo, A&E, etc. Lately I’ve been interested in the amazing discoveries Albert Lin finds using his LIDAR drones. The LIDAR strips away the jungle canopy to unveil lost Mayan cities.

I had looked into online LIDAR maps before for my county, but could only find Topo quality ones that you could not zoom in and see any real details. So I looked into buying a LIDAR drone, but they are crazy expensive, like Deus money...

I did some more online searching last week and found a link from Penn State with highly detailed LIDAR maps, including Allegheny County and Philadelphia.




Met a buddy to see if we could find this old road cut in the park woods and find the cellar hole at the end. We swung our way to where the road should be, lots of marshy ground (the worst) and tons of briars, but finally found the remnants of a cut limestone block foundation. About 25% of this area was swingable and we started finding some old coins and relics. Nothing amazing, but some oldies and keepers.


1824 Large Cent in the road right before the cellar.


Municipal Police whistle




Uncas ring from early 1900’s.

Surprised to find a CW Eagle Button (I believe), you never know what will pop out.



Here is the handful.


The LIDAR link is a fun new tool to use along with other mapping links to better select new sites for exploration.

Good luck out there!

 

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[roygpa]

Could you post a link to the LIDAR maps? Are Washington and maybe Crawford county available?

Thanks

Roy

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Could you post a link to the LIDAR maps? Are Washington and maybe Crawford county available?

Thanks

Roy

I did not see Crawford or Washington County. Looks like they just did LIDAR in the highest population areas. www.pasda.psu.edu is the website. Some very useful map overlay links.

 

[SanMan]

And that gentlemen is how it's done!

Using every tool in the box to get the job done!

Great post!

 

[Johncoho]

Nice selection of finds. Your research paid off. Congrats.

 

[Digger RJ]

Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Steve in PA]

Nice finds Thad. A buddy of mine used LIDAR to locate a site in Somerset county that gave up about a dozen Spanish silvers including an 8 reale, plus dozens of coppers and buttons. He traced a road bed leading to the place using LIDAR and saw a spring gutter on the LIDAR as well. Walked into the woods and saw a huge daffodil bed and a large pile of rocks for what must have been a late 18th century tavern.

 

[washingtonian]

Wow, very cool. Thank you for sharing! I hope this leads to a lot of cool finds for you.

 

[CRUSADER]

Yes LIDAR is useful, we have used it as a research tool.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Nice finds Thad. A buddy of mine used LIDAR to locate a site in Somerset county that gave up about a dozen Spanish silvers including an 8 reale, plus dozens of coppers and buttons. He traced a road bed leading to the place using LIDAR and saw a spring gutter on the LIDAR as well. Walked into the woods and saw a huge daffodil bed and a large pile of rocks for what must have been a late 18th century tavern.

Thx Steve. Stripping away the trees provides a bunch of interesting clues. You can easily see what parts of the land have been leveled/worked, old road beds are visible in overgrown forests. Challenge is determining a cellar hole from another anomaly.

 

[Hawks88]

Nice handful of saves. Congrats

 

[roygpa]

Going to have to learn how to download/view LiDar maps.
Anyone have a website for "Lidar viewing for Dummies"

-Roy

 

[PetesPockets55]

Excellent finds and use of the newer technology.

Looks like an extremely beneficial tool to use.

 

[grasshopper]

I work with that kind of data on a daily basis at our engineering/surveying company...it's a very useful tool.

If your state doesn't have publicly available lidar maps you can get it to work yourself with a little research. There are some free GIS software available which you can use to manipulate raw lidar data.

Here's an example of something I produced with publicly available data...you can see a few foundations that are pretty readily apparent...https://imgur.com/6q2AdGK

 

[Trezurehunter]

Nice job on your relics and research.

 

[Tuberale]

Interesting topic and follow-up, pa-dirt/ Thanks for sharing.

 

[Gare]

I find myself watching any treasure/outdoor adventure show in the evenings to unwind. Discovery, Nat Geo, A&E, etc. Lately I’ve been interested in the amazing discoveries Albert Lin finds using his LIDAR drones. The LIDAR strips away the jungle canopy to unveil lost Mayan cities.

I had looked into online LIDAR maps before for my county, but could only find Topo quality ones that you could not zoom in and see any real details. So I looked into buying a LIDAR drone, but they are crazy expensive, like Deus money...

I did some more online searching last week and found a link from Penn State with highly detailed LIDAR maps, including Allegheny County and Philadelphia.

View attachment 1766471
View attachment 1766472

Met a buddy to see if we could find this old road cut in the park woods and find the cellar hole at the end. We swung our way to where the road should be, lots of marshy ground (the worst) and tons of briars, but finally found the remnants of a cut limestone block foundation. About 25% of this area was swingable and we started finding some old coins and relics. Nothing amazing, but some oldies and keepers.

View attachment 1766473
1824 Large Cent in the road right before the cellar.

View attachment 1766476
Municipal Police whistle

View attachment 1766477
View attachment 1766478
View attachment 1766479
Uncas ring from early 1900’s.

Surprised to find a CW Eagle Button (I believe), you never know what will pop out.
View attachment 1766481
View attachment 1766482

Here is the handful.
View attachment 1766480

The LIDAR link is a fun new tool to use along with other mapping links to better select new sites for exploration.

Good luck out there!

Nice going great finds

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Great job on the research and the great finds !