Kytc Minute September 5, 2013

Hi, this is Miranda Thacker with your KYTC Minute. In our last segment, we shared how the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet uses an array of technologies called "LIDAR" to accomplish initial highway design and environmental compliance work. In addition to being a faster and more cost-effective process, KYTC professionals have identified other benefits in using LIDAR. Carl Shields with the Cabinet's Division of Environmental Analysis explains: Voice of Carl Shields: "The applications for LIDAR really applies to engineering but it gives us models of the ground surface. And so Will Holmes and I started looking at the archaeological applications of that for the Cabinet. Luckily, we haven't found any mounds in a number of our very active projects, but we're using the data to understand the land forms a little bit better. Prehistorically, how would native americans have used the land forms, specifically rock shelters and sink holes. And we're getting a much better idea for those land forms early on for how the archaeologists are going to do their field work, what the likelihood of finding archaeological sites would be. This is your KYTC Minute. Visit transportation.ky.gov every Thursday for updated information.