Blog Post – Grant Spector – 7/17/09

GPR sends pulses through the ground and bounces off objects in the ground and sends the pulses back to you. This allows us to see important objects or buildings that the inka, pre-inka, or Curonqui built without digging. The deepest our GPR can go is about ninety centimeters down and when the signal is sent back to us we use we measure it in nanoseconds. The day I was with Heather, Guy, Brian, Bobby, Barry, Jazmin, George and Sandy. We used the GPR behind the Hacienda above the houses on the terraces. First George walked up and down the field with the GPR so we could see it was a temple from the Inka. Then we had to set up a perimeter in which we would scan the ground. I was the first one to go. I had to pull the GPR along the ground up and down the field six times because we split it up amongst the nine of us so every one got a turn. Once I was done Brian took over and I went over to the monitor to see what the GPR was picking up. The way you read the data being sent to you is the GPR sends a bunch of straight lines to you that makes up the ground beneath you and when you find an object or a building or even a separation you will see spikes in the area. Then when you collect all of your data, you load it onto a computer a construct a 3D model which you can read in black or white or in color (whichever is easier). Today was fun but I had to come back before everyone because I hurt my leg the night before, so I didn’t get to see what the other people found or didn’t find and now I’m about to go to sleep, because last night I broke my bed and fixed it so hopefully it won’t break again.

-Grant Spector