Known as ‘Transparent Earth’, the $US4 million project will use innovations in sensor technology to create three-dimensional subterranean maps.

According to DARPA, the goal of the project is to “determine the physical, chemical and dynamic properties of the earth down to 5 kilometres in depth, including natural or man-made structures at militarily-relevant spatial scales.” It is intended that the maps will be made available to the United States military and intelligence agencies by 2015.

This is similar to the underground mapping already undertaken by Geospatial, whose Smart Probe travels along subterranean pipes and produces three-dimensional maps of the surrounding terrain.