The beauty buried in the data

Art created using laser data reveals the history and geological wonder of Washington’s landscape and rivers.

Daniel Coe

Image credit: Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

July 1, 2022 From the print edition

Daniel Coe, the graphics editor for the Washington Geological Survey, creates surreal composite images showing rivers, ridges and other natural features from above. Using data from plane-mounted lasers, his work blends the technical and natural to uncover hidden details of the landscape. He began creating these images while working for the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries and has continued the work in Washington. The process begins with survey teams gathering laser scans using LiDAR, or Light Detection And Ranging, to generate precise elevation maps. Then Coe adds artificial light and color — sometimes even aerial photography — to the topographical renderings, exposing the beauty buried in the data. This allows him to share the enduring stories the land tells of old slides and future risks, as well as the past paths of rivers, revealing the routes they carve through the landscape — and through time itself. —Michael Crowe

“Cartography and mapmaking straddle the boundary between art and science in a lot of ways. Or they often do. We live in a beautiful world, and you can show it in all these beautiful ways with this new technology. But it also has great scientific value. Looking back into the past allows us to see what might happen in the future.”

—Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

Floodplain with the current and former channels of the Skagit River near Rockport, Washington.
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

Stream confluence, Chehalis River and Black River.
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

Alluvial fans lining the Methow River Valley in northern Washington.
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

Estuaries of the Deep River and Grays River, and large landslides above the White River in Wahkiakum County.
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

“It’s humbling, at a certain level, when you start thinking about geologic time, or even back to the last ice age. That’s a really long time from a human scale and a human perspective, but in a geologic timescale, it’s just a blip. So being able to grasp just a little bit of that deeper time is something that I really enjoy, and I like helping convey that to other people.”

—Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

LiDAR-derived image of the Willapa River as it flows out of the heart of the Willapa Hills in southwest Washington.
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

An image of the Willamette River created using LiDAR data. “Human beings like to engineer rivers for various reasons. … But this really gives you the sense that the river doesn’t care. The river is going to go where it needs to go eventually, whether that be 100 years or 1,000 years from now — it’s going to find a way to move.”
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey

See more of Daniel’s work.

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Note: This story has been updated to correct a caption in which we misidentified the location of the Deep River and Grays River image. It is in Wahkiakum County, not Pierce County, Washington.

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