Seeing through the Earth's crust, clearlyGeospatial Corporation maps the world under the Earth's crust
Pennsylvania-based Geospatial Corporation — company’s motto: “Mapping the underground / Managing the global infrastructure” — offers a solution which creates detailed 3D maps of underground regions; the Pentagon has already contracted Geospatial to create 3D maps of the deep earth beneath their “critical facilities”
The U.S. Department of Defense already has ever-watchful eyes in the sky, underwater, and on the ground — but what about underground? Last month, the Pentagon’s research arm, DARPA, announced plans for a program called Transparent Earth. The agency is spending $4 million this year on preliminary plans for a digital, 3D map that would display “the physical, chemical and dynamic properties of the earth down to 5 kilometer depth.”
Katie Drummond writes that Sarver, Pennsylvania-based Geospatial Corporation is already doing it. The company, started in 2005 by longtime water-pipeline manufacturer Mark Smith, uses a proprietary gadget called Smart Probe to map deep earth via underground pipes. The company’s probe can be inserted into pipes as small as 1 1/2 inches, and then travel their length while taking super-speedy coordinates — 800 per second — and saving them onto a USB key. The probe is removed, the data extracted, and a 3D map of the underground region is created. The probe can travel through pipes that are empty, or contain fluid or gas.
Drummond writes that Geospatial got started by mapping telecommunication lines for cable companies, and has since moved on to mapping oil and gas lines, waterways and sewage tunnels. The company is also planning to map entire municipalities to enable cheaper, faster fixes of infrastructure problems. Smith told Drummond that the company is creating a “mega-map” geographic information system (GIS) platform, called GeoUnderground. “Underground,” he says, “is truly the final frontier.”
The company’s growing a library of data has caught the military’s eye. The Pentagon has already contracted Geospatial to create 3D maps of the deep earth beneath their “critical facilities.” The data would be useful in case of terrorist attack, natural disaster, or a power outage or sewage leak.
“Little surprise, then, that homeland security firms are also interested,” Drummond notes. Geospatial announced a partnership the other day with Ridge Global, a firm founded by former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, which “provides strategic and operational services that advance the security and economic interests of businesses and governments worldwide.”
