LiDAR Imagery - It’s a Beautiful World

“Carolina bays“

This Digital Elevation Map covers ~ 600 square km centered on Rex, NC (Robeson County), and was generated in the Global Mapper GIS program using LiDAR data from the USGS. The colors shown are an indication of topographic elevation, from 16 m AMSL in the lower right, to 76 m in upper left. Vertical resolutions of centimeters allow for visualization of the form and extent of the bays’ otherwise imperceptible rims. Rockfish Creek flows along the northern edge. CSX’s Atlantic Coast Line rail bisects the area diagonally along a strikingly straight right-of-way; Interstate 95 winds N-S on the right. The KML is available for visualization in Google Earth HERE.


Carolina bays (Image linked to high resolution version)

The source TIFF file for the above DEM is 36” x 24” at 300 DPI. As an example of the detail it contains, the image below is shown at 100%. The area it elaborates on is just left of the center of the image above.



The image below is from immediately west of the image above. The image was edited to change the hue of the heart-shaped bay, but not its shape. The KML to visualize this area in Google Earth is available HERE. A high resolution version is available HERE.


Heart of the Carolina bays

For another view of the heart, here is the view in the Google Earth Plug-in HERE
Again, the source DEM map holds significantly more detail than can be presented here. The image below shows the heart bay at 100% resolution:


Heart Detail



This map is from the Fayetteville, NC 100K quadrant. A 300 dpi 20”x25” high resolution version (95MB) is available HERE.


Fayetteville, NC

The large bay at the top of the above image is located just south-east of Benson, NC. The landform is quite complex, with indications of multiple smaller bays fully embedded within the larger one. The image below highlights this area, and a higher resolution version (13MB) is available HERE.


Benson, NC

The image below is from the Bennettsville, South Carolina region. A high resolution image (2MB) is available HERE.


Bennettsville, NC

The image below is from the Quitsna, North Carolina region. A high resolution image (10MB) is available HERE. An interesting feature is that the two bays here seem to exist on top of the ancestral fluvial fabric.


Quitsna, NC

Another “river bay” image below is from the Conetoe, North Carolina area. A high resolution image (10MB) is available HERE. These assortment of bays here exits mid-stream across a large drainage basin.


Contoe, NC

Here are bays on a peninsula between the bays ... image below is from the Currituck, North Carolina area. A high resolution image (9 MB) is available HERE.


Currituck, NC

Close up images of bays in South Carolina reflect the higher LiDAR resolution available with new LiDAR vs the 10-year old data from North Carolina... image below is from the Benson, South Carolina area. A high resolution image (3 MB) is available HERE.


Benson, SC

In many areas bordering river valleys, sand dunes can be seen moving west-to-east across the bays. Often the bay survives the invasion... image below is from the Georgetown, South Carolina area. A high resolution image (13 MB) is available HERE.


Georgetown, SC

One intriguing aspect of the bay formation mechanism, is that it was elevation agnostic... It seems unlikely their formation was controlled by either sea level or water table. The DEM map below is from the Latta, South Carolina area. A high resolution image (16 MB) is available HERE.


Latta, SC