Mapping Traditions

By

Technology Cartography

This Article From Issue

March-April 2013

Volume 101, Number 2

Page 86

DOI: 10.1511/2013.101.86

Willamette River, Oregon, by Daniel E. Coe of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, displays a 50-foot elevation range, with lower elevations shown in white and higher elevations in dark blue. Coe used LIDAR data to make the map; he writes that he was inspired by maps of the Mississippi River made by Harold N. Fisk for a 1944 Army Corps of Engineers study.

From Atlas of Design.

To the Editors:

In Tim Stallmann’s review of Atlas of Design (January–February), he discusses the continuing need for cartographers. The review includes a beautiful map of the Willamette River, created using LIDAR satellite data.

Satellites can be useful, but cartographers skilled in the pre-satellite era mapmaking practice are still needed. Caves are a case in point: Satellites and GPS devices are useless underground. Our son Brent and his wife, Nancy, are ardent cavers. Nancy was featured in the IMAX film Journey into Amazing Caves . Brent has explored and mapped numerous caves, mostly for the Speleological Society. They find that old-fashioned cartographic methods remain useful for mapping caves.

I concur with Stallmann that we should not close the door on cartographers yet.

Donald B. Aulenbach
Clifton Park, NY

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