Agricultural layers, boundaries managed by man, pine lines missing a few blown and shaped by wind, soils depleted and replenished, electricity lines. Visual clues are purely a surface layer of manmade landscape. What is beneath? How can we visualise the layers of history and geodiversity?
Geological maps and Light Detection and radar (LiDAR) maps give some idea of the past. By flying over landscape and sending down laser pulses, a 3D image can be produced to give relative heights of land and vegetation below.
In comparison to the intensively farmed land around it, the forest is thought to have had a relatively benign effect on surviving ground features. It may be that the forest proves to be a rich source of evidence from thousands of years of previous land use and this will build upon our knowledge and understanding of layers of the landscape.
