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Land Surveyors Go To The Hottest Place On Earth

Filed Under Science 

If you’ve ever been walking to work and seen people in high vis jackets and hard hats looking through a lens on an industrial looking tripod, you may well have wondered what exactly they were up to. Industrial photography is not the answer, but it may come close because of the change in technology of land surveyor’s equipment. There are very exciting things on the horizon, literally, for land surveyors; but you can forget mapping out the camber of the local high street, and look towards the most exciting geological event currently taking place in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

A recent field trip to East Africa has presented geologists with a chance to find out more about one of the hottest places on earth, the Danakil Depression. This is the lowest lying land in Africa, and also the hottest. With a very active volcanic substrate, the area is geologically unique, and as such attracts the attention of geologists who use land surveying skills to chart the incredible changes that are happening in the area.

This is one of only two areas on earth where it is possible to study the tectonic movement of a mid ocean rift. Of course there is no water here now, but it does enable geologists to survey an ocean floor and the processes behind the geological formations, from seabed deposits to sulphurous lakes. The interesting aspect of this area is that the plates are moving apart at a staggering 2 centimetres per year; eventually, part of the Horn of Africa will break away from the mainland and drift into the Indian Ocean, taking with it part of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and most of the Somali Democratic Republic too.

Recently a massive earthquake was felt in the area, and using state of the art land surveying equipment, a geological phenomenon was mapped digitally. The once intact though volatile Danakil Desert actually tore apart, creating a crack in the earth’s crust that can be seen from space. How deep the crevice is is unknown, as noxious fatal gasses coming from volcanic activity underneath the crust prevented the use of land surveying equipment to be used in the crevice itself.

Instead, a 360 degree camera that can pinpoint up to a thousand points per square foot was used to create a detailed image from the top of the new tear in the earth’s crust. By using such equipment, it will be possible for tectonic movement to be tracked accurately, giving a deeper insight into the forces of nature responsible for the shaping of our continents.

Dom Donaldson is a geology expert.
Find out more about Land Surveyors and how the new high tech equipment can be used for mapping buildings and terrain at EDL surveys.

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