TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Scott C. Mitchell on March 07, 2021, 06:22:58 PM
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Do we have a comprehensive exploration map of Nikumaroro? By that, I mean a detailed map showing all the exploration initiatives and discoveries by TIGHAR and others in pursuit of the AE / FN mystery. The website is populated by numerous charts for specific topics -- like X marks the spot where aircraft wreckage was seen offshore, and where a candidate for a Lockheed tire was once spotted, etc. But it would be informative to put it all together in a single map, including, say, where we tracked Robert Ballard's offshore survey, and the location of the artifacts unearthed so far. What brought this to mind was Andrew McKenna's observation, in light of the calls for a survey of the area of the "Taraia object", that we had already done a search with metal detectors on the beach. This sort of detail may be part of the current institutional memory of the TIGHAR veterans, especially the expedition participants. But unless it is all gathered in one place, a new generation of searchers will be retracing old steps without knowing it. So the map would not just be the macro landmarks -- here's the shipwreck, here is Camp Seven -- but down to the micro level of what kind of exploration was done where and when, and the results, like the work Andrew and his colleagues did at the Taraia site. I actually considered reconstructing such a map from the posts on this website and the expedition reports, but the enormity of that task soon swamped that ambition. Just a thought. / Scott #3292R
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What you're talking about is a GIS (Geographic Information System) map of the whole island. It would be good to have but we don't have the data to do it. I could outline general areas that have been searched and list the various artifacts collected in these areas but the only area, aside from the village, where we've found anything that appears to be related to Earhart is the Seven Site. That's the only site where we have "shot in" each feature and artifact with azimuth and distance from a known datum. We're Mac-based and most GIS software is not compatible with Macs, so I created a home-grown GIS of the Seven Site in Adobe Illustrator. It works well and I can pin-point where each of the hundreds of artifacts was found down to a few centimeters, but it's not something we can send around as an interactive file.
We've found a few things in the village that appear to be from the aircraft but, because anything found in the village was - by definition - moved there from somewhere else, the locations were not shot it in.
The only place on the island that arguably might be expected to produce more artifacts related to Earhart is the Seven Site. The area that was cleared and surveyed by TIGHAR in 2001, expanded in 2007, and expanded further in 2010, turned up some significant features and artifacts. The same area was examined again by the Betchart people without result in 2015 and 2017, and yet again by the Nat Geo people without result in 2019. Further work at the Seven Site would involve expanding the area beyond the boundaries of what has already been searched. That would mean determining the boundaries of the previously searched area (now completely grown back to nearly impenetrable scaevola) and clearing some undefined additional area (how do you know when you've gone far enough?). It would be a monumental- and monumentally expensive - task with little chance of finding anything more conclusive than what we've already found.
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I like the concept though, reminds me of this other search:
http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-bill-ewasko/a-bayesian-approach-to-looking-for-bill-ewasko-august-2018/
Dan Brown, #2408
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Our methodology has been essentially Bayesian without being consciously so.
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Ric, I think what would be really neat for many new Tighar's and some of us old Tighars...is an overlay map of Nikumarro. I don't know if any of you remember many old text book science books and map books...But, had the clear plastic with certain maps during a certain time period. What was really neat about those was you could take a certain time period and pin point it on the map...take the next page and do the same for a new feature say 20 to 30 years later. In our case...take the island from the time of the Norwich City, to the islanders, the the Bevington Object, and current expeditions...and its almost like doing the same with Bob Ballards search patterns. I think what would be really neat is a 3 dimensional map of Niku. Anyway, food for thought! Anyway, the past expeditions the drone, the helicopter, and the many underwater ROV videos, and island videos are truly remarkable. It puts you right there, but like Scott mentioned sometimes it hard to figure out where you really are on the island. Also, I have one question about metal detecting...does coral interfere with metal detecting either on the island or on the reef? Just curious
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Also, I have one question about metal detecting...does coral interfere with metal detecting either on the island or on the reef? Just curious
No.
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If you ever need GIS services for this or anything else I be happy to volunteer if you don't have someone already. I've been working with remote sensing and GIS projects for a long time and have a PhD in the field. I've got access to ArGIS and all of the extensions plus numerous remote sensing packages.
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Thanks John.
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Thanks John.
I suggest we let John and Jim Thompson go to town with what we have.
Like pizza, a GIS doesn't have to be perfect to be good. Broad strokes can tell the story, just as caricatures can draw out the essential features of a person's face.
A GIS designed for construction engineers in a modern city is a different kettle of fish, of course. Millimeters count when you are digging near other people's power lines and plumbing. The story of TIGHAR on Niku can probably be told with an error bar of a couple of yards, especially as the light fades and the liquid refreshments work their magic.
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I presume that what you have in mind is a GIS that could be put on the TIGHAR website for everyone to use without buying special software. Can anyone provide a link to such a GIS? Let's look at some examples.
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I presume that what you have in mind is a GIS that could be put on the TIGHAR website for everyone to use without buying special software. Can anyone provide a link to such a GIS? Let's look at some examples.
Google Earth and Google Maps are GIS-based systems.
"1000 GIS Applications & Uses – How GIS Is Changing the World" (https://gisgeography.com/gis-applications-uses/)
34. Mapping Mars with MOLA – Start mapping a whole entire new planet using NASA’s MOLA. (USGS Planetary GIS Web Server – PIGWAD)
35. Mars Terrain – Going for a spin on the rugged terrain of Mars using data captured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). (Mars Terrain)
36. Mars Rover Landing – Examining how to landing the Mars Rover safely with operations criteria including latitude for solar power, soil softness, slopes using laser altimetry, dustiness, rockiness, and a landing footprint.
37. Water Flow on Mars – Hillshading the Mars Digital Elevation Model to augment legibility and understand where rivers may have flowed and oceans flourished. (Mars Water Flow)
38. Satellite Orbits – Gazing the sky for satellites and even programming satellites for image acquisition. (Satellite Map)
39. Magnetic Fields – Investigating magnetic field lines in 3D with international geomagnetic field maps.
40. Astrogeology – Delivering planetary mapping to the international science community in public domain – from planetary topology to lunar geology.
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Yes, Google Earth and Google Maps are GIS-based systems. TIGHAR is not Google. There is no question John and/or Jim could create a GIS of Niku with data I could provide but we're talking about hundreds of man-hours on both ends. What would we then do with it? I can't find a way we could simply put it up on the website for people to use like Google Earth. We could make it available as a download via Dropbox (it would be a huge file), but the user would have to have software such as ARCGIS to use it. How many people would do that?
Having a GIS of everything we've done at Nikumaroro would be good to have. No argument there. But it doesn't look like the route to what Scott is looking for. I could create a large scale zoomable map of the island color-coded to indicate which areas have been archaeologically excavated; intensely surface metal detected; lightly metal detected; visually examined; or never visited. Offshore area could be divided into intensely searched with sonar and ROV: searched with sonar only; searched with ROV only; intensely searched with divers; lightly searched with divers; or never searched. It would still be a big project but doable in a way that could be put up on the TIGHAR website and usable by anyone.
We wouldn't be able to show Ballard's work until he releases his data, which he has been in no hurry to do.
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I was not even familiar with the concept of a Geographic Information System (GIS). Thanks, Ric!
The idea of mapping Niku with exploration efforts and results would have four goals:
1. Preserve institutional memory of past exploration efforts
2. Systemize exploration efforts by geography
3. Provide context.
4. Encourage recollection of specific exploration efforts.
As stated in the first post, this idea was inspired by Andrew McKenna’s post on the Taraia object. In response to the suggestion that the beach ought to be explored in the future for Electra remnants, Andrew reminded us that he was a part of a group that had already explored that very area with metal detectors. Unless exploration efforts are catalogued, this institutional memory will begin to fade, and certainly not be available to those who were not direct participants.
As another example, the forum has posted the NIKU VIII Preliminary Report. There are references to checking a reef with underwater metal detectors, a search for Camp Zero, and trying to photograph an underwater anomaly with the ROV. All these are exciting projects with potential significant discoveries. Even negative results can be significant. A map describing these efforts would preserve the memory and specifics for all time -- all the more reason to have some kind of central organizing scheme to catalog the data. That scheme could be chronological, like a dateline. Or it could be based on the nature of the work – by underwater exploration, or, metal-detecting, or by excavatios. Or it could be geographical. The map idea favors geographical. This is probably based on the assumption that discoveries may be found in clusters, and geographical presentation is easy to understand and visualize.
Context can be discerned through geography. If most of the artifacts are found in a specific location, what are the implications?
Finally, an effort to plot exploration by geography might encourage more detailed recollections of what exactly was done on a particular site.
All this is not to say that TIGHAR does not already provide a bounty of information on its work. I can’t wait to get my hands on each issue of TIGHAR Tracks. And I am sure that detailed records of each expedition are maintained at HQ. The thought is that providing an exploration (or GIS) map would give us all a detailed full-glance appreciation of what has been done before.
The idea of GIS format and the overlay approach suggested above by Randy would be helpful organizing principles. Another idea would be to grid the island, and then have a resource that ties markers shown on the map to detailed descriptions in a catalog. (Such as “Marker #1: At this site during NIKU VIII, at attempt was made to lower a camera in 60 feet of water in an attempt to locate an anomaly perceived during the 2012 expedition. Results: anomaly could not be located.”)
Maybe there is a way to organize this project so that volunteers could go through our archives, or the forum, or other places where we have accumulated geographical information, and post them on the map grid accordingly. / Scott #3292R
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1. Preserve institutional memory of past exploration efforts
I should explain how we preserve institutional memory. On every TIGHAR expedition, team members are required to complete a Field Notes form at the end of each day's work - where you went, what you did, what you saw, who you were with, who you found (if anything), etc. After the expedition, the original handwritten field notes, with often include sketches and hand-drawn maps, are archived and a digital summary of each team member's notes for each day is entered in a searchable database. For example, this is the summary for team member Veryl Fenlason's notes for one day on the first expedition:
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{Niku I Sept. 23, 1989} Veryl Fenlason: Island: Jessica Krakow, Bill Decker and myself with metal detectors started 60 yds. NNE of the flag mast at southernmost part of Gardner Island's E side proceeding along the beach from 2/3 the water line to line of scaevola as per diagram- covering a distance of approximately 1 kilometer. The island beach changes direction slightly with a tree nearly at water edge. We were finding lots of bottles, florescent lights, sandals, fisherman's floats. [drawing in original notes].
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The database for Niku I is 123 pages long.
Team members who also kept personal journals turned in copies to be archived.
All photos taken during an expedition are collected at the end of each days work and cataloged by person and day. Of course, for the early expeditions we collected the film to be developed and catalogued later.
Bottom line: There is a tremendous amount of documentation for each day of every expedition.
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There are numerous ways to make GIS data available to view that don't require the viewer to purchase GIS software. Exporting the data to view is the easy part. The time consuming part is assembling the data and symbolizing it in meaningful ways that tells the story of the data. This is where an experienced GIS person is most valuable. When you have multiple layers of points, lines and polygons all with their own attribute data (such as field notes) it can be a confusing mess if not done properly.
Yes, Google Earth and Google Maps are GIS-based systems. TIGHAR is not Google. There is no question John and/or Jim could create a GIS of Niku with data I could provide but we're talking about hundreds of man-hours on both ends. What would we then do with it? I can't find a way we could simply put it up on the website for people to use like Google Earth. We could make it available as a download via Dropbox (it would be a huge file), but the user would have to have software such as ARCGIS to use it. How many people would do that?
Having a GIS of everything we've done at Nikumaroro would be good to have. No argument there. But it doesn't look like the route to what Scott is looking for. I could create a large scale zoomable map of the island color-coded to indicate which areas have been archaeologically excavated; intensely surface metal detected; lightly metal detected; visually examined; or never visited. Offshore area could be divided into intensely searched with sonar and ROV: searched with sonar only; searched with ROV only; intensely searched with divers; lightly searched with divers; or never searched. It would still be a big project but doable in a way that could be put up on the TIGHAR website and usable by anyone.
We wouldn't be able to show Ballard's work until he releases his data, which he has been in no hurry to do.
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To add a bit more to my above post regarding GIS. Making the data ready for consumption is only small part of GIS. In fact one could argue that aspect is more in the realm of cartography. Where GIS really shines is when you apply the SCIENCE in Geographic Information Science. This aspect is where you look at the various layers and work at extracting information that comes from relationships between the layers. A very simplistic example of this would be looking at a map that showed known archeological sites and historic sources of water. You should see a correlation between those layers. To take it another step further, and this was from a project I ran a number of years ago to find potential archeological sites. We took layers that consisted of known historic water sources, elevation data (elevation often played a role in a camps location), known food sources, etc... I compiled the list after talking to several archeologists. All of these layers were then weighted with a number between 1 and 10 with 10 being the most important. The data was then run through a tool in Arcmap that produced a heat map where red areas were high probability of an archeological site and green was low with orange and yellow between those two. It turned out to be a very successful project as it saved a great deal of time for the archeologists when they were in the field.
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That is fascinating, John - imagine how many scientific disciplines it would take to knit together a mosaic like that. I remember watching an archaeology documentary on the Battle of Little Big Horn, in which rifle casing shellls collected over the battlefield were identified by specific ballistic marks on the shells (not the bullets) that tied each shell to a specific rifle--and therefore to a soldier. By this means, they were able to trace the passage of the soldiers over the battlefield as they shot their rifles and left a trail of shells. This provided an altogether different understanding of the dynamics of the battle (more of a series of running fights with different groups of soldiers, rather than a single all-together-now last stand of the Custer myth). TIGHAR has done this to a considerable level on what artifacts have been unearthed - extrapolating a cobbled-together steam water extraction device from a burnt bottle, for example.
Another thought - it seems to me from hearing the reports of others who have been on Niku, that one the biggest challenges to cartography and archaeology is the undergrowth. It's hard to find these little clues if you have to hack your way through impenetrable layers of bush. / Scott #3292R
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TIGHAR has done this to a considerable level on what artifacts have been unearthed - extrapolating a cobbled-together steam water extraction device from a burnt bottle, for example.
To be clear, there is no evidence of a steam water extraction device. We found two broken bottles in the remains of a small campfire. Both bottles are 1930s vintage. The bottoms of both bottles are melted but the upper parts are not heat-damaged, suggesting the bottle stood upright in the fire. Nearby we found a length of wire bent in such a way as to act as a handle to hold a bottle upright. We also found part of a smaller bottle nearby. There was a report that a Benedictine bottle was found with the bones containing fresh water for drinking. We know that rain water can be collected form fallen leaves and bolls in tree roots in the Buka forest adjoining the campsite.
Our supposition is that Earhart used the small bottle to collect rainwater and deposited the water in the two larger bottles for boiling in the fire. The boiled water was then stored in the Benedictine bottle.
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You touched on something that is what I consider the best part of this line of work. I get to work with a multitude of scientific disciplines. I've worked with archeologists, biologists historians, geologists, did a elevation map of a lunar site for one geologist. I even worked with an electrical engineer writing a paper on his theory for the Marfa Lights.
Funny you mentioned Little Bighorn. I did a viewshed analysis of the site a few years ago. One of my committee members was doing a paper on the battle. I'm not sure if that ever got published. I'll need to go check.
That is fascinating, John - imagine how many scientific disciplines it would take to knit together a mosaic like that. I remember watching an archaeology documentary on the Battle of Little Big Horn, in which rifle casing shellls collected over the battlefield were identified by specific ballistic marks on the shells (not the bullets) that tied each shell to a specific rifle--and therefore to a soldier. By this means, they were able to trace the passage of the soldiers over the battlefield as they shot their rifles and left a trail of shells. This provided an altogether different understanding of the dynamics of the battle (more of a series of running fights with different groups of soldiers, rather than a single all-together-now last stand of the Custer myth). TIGHAR has done this to a considerable level on what artifacts have been unearthed - extrapolating a cobbled-together steam water extraction device from a burnt bottle, for example.
Another thought - it seems to me from hearing the reports of others who have been on Niku, that one the biggest challenges to cartography and archaeology is the undergrowth. It's hard to find these little clues if you have to hack your way through impenetrable layers of bush. / Scott #3292R
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Just a question. Some broadcast station recently re-ran the 'search for the lost colony' stuff. Part of it highlighted that a satellite search for copper deposits was performed. (Something about Native Americans valuing copper in trading etc.) And there are the satellite discoveries of Egypt, and the satellite findings of massive roads and cities in central and south america (I think).
Now I'm sure these satellites and their time is 1 million dollars a second and there's no time to book until 2237, but . . . Would a drone based aerial mapping effort (with precision the way they used to map cities by photographing while flying grids) be valuable. Perhaps a) the right kind of camera could capture the data that the satellites produce so the pictures could get processed by some friendly university etc. that has the software to extract whatever, or, b) the proper camera gear that detects what the satellites 'see' could be employed. I know drones are viewed as 'small' but a helicopter, say from a commercial tuna ship might be able to do something. I think its fair to want to 'detect' everything on the island. The Gilbertese may have left some pieces, perhaps hidden, or a storm tossed something inland. More data, if accurate, could only help find the missing pieces. Or, I'm talking through my hat (which I can't find since I fled california.)
L
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Would a drone based aerial mapping effort (with precision the way they used to map cities by photographing while flying grids) be valuable.
Drone based aerial mapping would give us a more precise map of the island. Would that be valuable? Only if it revealed important clues relative to Earhart investigation. Is there evidence to suggest it would? No.
More data, if accurate, could only help find the missing pieces.
The available evidence suggests the missing pieces are small, scattered, in the water and probably covered in coral. I'm not aware of any technology that could spot them.
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I have written some papers on this subject so I think I can address what you are asking about. In general the types of things that are detectable in this manner are very large objects or former structures.
In WWII there were a number of pilot training bases in south Texas. Each one of the bases had satellite fields surrounding them that the pilots would use to learn navigation. These satellite fields generally were in the shape of a large star and as I recall they were made that way so the student pilot could land from almost any direction. After the war these satellite fields were abandoned and returned to farm use. All remnants of the fields were seemingly removed. However, during growing season for the crops, you can see the outline of the old training fields if you observe it with certain wavelengths of light. What has happened is the soil chemistry in the area of the old airfield is slightly different than that of the surrounding area. It will have a mixture of soil, bits of concrete, chemicals, and anything that wasn't hauled off. What is planted here has a slightly different growth pattern/health than the surrounding field. These differences in plant health can be seen under certain wavelengths.
In arid areas you can see similar patterns. In this case it is generally due to a difference in reflectivity of the ground material due to the disturbances.
So what I'm saying is it is unlikely you would be able to detect these kind of disturbances from an object as small as an aircraft or a campsite with the environment there. The plant growth there is so thick and dynamic that it would take a very large disturbance to be detectable from the air.
Just a question. Some broadcast station recently re-ran the 'search for the lost colony' stuff. Part of it highlighted that a satellite search for copper deposits was performed. (Something about Native Americans valuing copper in trading etc.) And there are the satellite discoveries of Egypt, and the satellite findings of massive roads and cities in central and south america (I think).
Now I'm sure these satellites and their time is 1 million dollars a second and there's no time to book until 2237, but . . . Would a drone based aerial mapping effort (with precision the way they used to map cities by photographing while flying grids) be valuable. Perhaps a) the right kind of camera could capture the data that the satellites produce so the pictures could get processed by some friendly university etc. that has the software to extract whatever, or, b) the proper camera gear that detects what the satellites 'see' could be employed. I know drones are viewed as 'small' but a helicopter, say from a commercial tuna ship might be able to do something. I think its fair to want to 'detect' everything on the island. The Gilbertese may have left some pieces, perhaps hidden, or a storm tossed something inland. More data, if accurate, could only help find the missing pieces. Or, I'm talking through my hat (which I can't find since I fled california.)
L
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Here's one of those satellite airfields from a USGS photo taken in 1951. A few years after this photo was taken this entire field was growing cotton.
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In a hundred years the conspiracy theorists will have fun with that one.
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Just to be clear, my question Q1 below (a subset of the original poster question starting this thread) is not a "Would it be possible to have...?" question?. It's an "Is there already...?" question.
Q1. Is there a map of where Ballard searched in 2019 (on the TIGHAR website, or elsewhere)?
Q2. If not, did his expedition search southwest of the shipwreck site, or only northwest?
I saw the pre-Ballard underwater search map on page 3 of the August 2019 TIGHAR TRACKS. I looked over the "Ballard Is Going Back to Niku Next Year" thread in the TIGHAR Forum webpages. I tried the 2019 Expedition webpage of Ballard's Nautilus Live website, but didn't see where to go from that webpage and didn't want to do a Join with whatever that entailed. I have a National Geographic mail (paper) subscription and thought I had done whatever I have to do to read National Geographic articles online whenever I get an e-mail notice of something, but...their online access stuff is very user-unfriendly. I click on a link and the National Geographic computer wants something else, and my institutional memory of what I last figured out, as to pursuing National Geographic online, goes away quickly.
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Q1. Is there a map of where Ballard searched in 2019 (on the TIGHAR website, or elsewhere)?
Q2. If not, did his expedition search southwest of the shipwreck site, or only northwest?
A1. It may be that the brown area in the slide at 56:12-56:25 of the online video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f21s7sKB3qM, from the October 2021 Arden presentation in Delaware by Ric Gillespie, may show the Ballard search area.
A2. If so, the answer to Q2, ignoring the "if not," is yes, with some deeper water leftover.
This video, by the way, is very good despite some technical difficulties moving from slide to slide and the coughing. Besides how it pieces together everything, and informs me on the sleuthing logic better than I was informed before, it got me past some minimal doubts I had about specific details of the TIGHAR thesis. These had to do in part with (a), at 31:22, the segment where Ric Gillespie explains that Betty, interviewed in person, told him that NY NY was the way she wrote New York CITY. Some skeptic I read had challenged that NY NY referred to New York City as opposed to just New York, and thus had challenged the "Norwich City" similarity idea. Also, (b) later parts of the video got me more informed that the idea of where the plane landed was strongly based on subsequent islander reports of where plane wreckage was (thus eliminating my doubts as to whether the plane might have ditched in the lagoon closer to the 7 site, if there was a lagoon way for it to disappear before the July aerial search). So between (a) and (b), I've over any lagoon landing discomfort or possibility, ruling it out, whereas before, I wasn't really sure why it had been so ruled out by TIGHAR when there had been little exploratory scuba (or other) diving there.
My other thought from the video, however, is that the shipwreck might (emphasis might) have had more opportunity to be torn apart, situated where it was on the reef edge with waves and storms hitting it, than the plane would have opportunity to be torn apart, if it had slid off towards and into the deep within a week of the landing. Ballard's Titanic, for instance, sunk in 1912 a quarter century before 1937, still has a lot intact as opposed to everything having crumbled to pieces. So a related curiosity I have is:
Q3. If we suppose that a portion of the plane, wherever in deeper water, were still intact rather than crumbled into scattered tiny pieces, what portion of the plane would be likeliest to be most intact and largest?
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A1. It may be that the brown area in the slide at 56:12-56:25 of the online video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f21s7sKB3qM, from the October 2021 Arden presentation in Delaware by Ric Gillespie, may show the Ballard search area.
No. Where the Ballard exploration map is clearly shown is on page 3 of TIGHAR Tracks, Volume 37 #3, September 2021. SW of the shipwreck location was covered for the whole west end of the island to a certain depth, and in a varying pattern otherwise at deeper levels, although there are some holes in the coverage.
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My other thought from the video...is that the shipwreck might...have had more opportunity to be torn apart, situated where it was on the reef edge with waves and storms hitting it, than the plane would have opportunity to be torn apart, if it had slid off towards and into the deep within a week of the landing. Ballard's Titanic, for instance, sunk in 1912 a quarter century before 1937, still has a lot intact as opposed to everything having crumbled to pieces. So a related curiosity I have is:
Q3. If we suppose that a portion of the plane, wherever in deeper water, were still intact rather than crumbled into scattered tiny pieces, what portion of the plane would be likeliest to be most intact and largest?
At least two big counterpoints there. Both the Titanic and the Norwich City were lots more solid and sturdy structurally, and lots bigger, than the airplane. The Titanic sunk to a flat surface, as opposed to having an underwater cliff to tumble down against.
The Q3, I guess, still holds, but I'm quitting this flurry of posting. I'm in the process reviewing all the TIGHAR Tracks issues forward from their beginning and backwards some from their ending. Study first, patiently, then ask questions, if any. But the general thesis of a Nikumaroro landing and marooned outcome IMHO is slam dunk, and has been for a long time stretching back to 1990s TIGHAR Tracks issues.
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I'm a bit late to this discussion and I've been off forum for maybe a couple of years. However, I use a Web based ARCGIS viewer that, while it isn't a lot of use for most things, might be useful to somebody who already has GIS datapoints or whatever filed somewhere.
The web link where they talk about what services are available is:
https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/overview
The bit I normally use is:
https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html
I've never through to check out Niku before, but I typed nikumororo in the search box and hit enter.
I got a sort of mapish view. On the LEFT under where it says ARCGIS and MyMap, there's an option 'Basemap'.
Changing from the default and selecting 'Imagery' Shows basically a reasonable resolution GoogleEarth type view of Niku.
Now, that's not bad, and it is ok for just having a look. But the Overview in the first link suggests that using the subscription service you should be able to load the GIS data into ARCGIS and 'use it'. It also suggests it can be shared, but I haven't read whether you can do a password access type of thing.
Anyway, it might be no use whatever, or there might be some sort of use for something like this either within TIGHAR;s closed management group, or wider in the organisation.
Hope you all had a Happy Independence Day Holiday,
Th' Wombat . . .