In 2024, a Mayan megacity was discovered in Campeche, Mexico. Swallowed by the rainforest, this lost urban center contained pyramids, plazas, amphitheaters, and highways. But this discovery wasn't made by a team of seasoned explorers hacking through the rainforest with machetes. It was made by a Ph.D. student. And he found it by accident.
"I was on something like page 16 of a Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organization for environmental monitoring," Luke Auld-Thomas, who is pursuing his doctorate at Tulane University, explained to the BBC in October. That overlooked, decade-old survey contained groundbreaking information hidden in plain sight.
The survey used light detection and ranging (lidar) technology, a remote-sensing method that sends thousands of laser pulses from an aircraft to map objects buried beneath vegetation. The system measures how long it takes for the signals to bounce back, creating a detailed 3D image of the landscape.
