Date Time Aerial Laser Imaging for Better Natural Disaster Preparation and Response Earlier this year, a historic cold snap left millions of Texans without heat and electricity. In the face of increasing climatic anomalies and future natural disasters of this scale, Texans need to be well equipped to handle these situations in order to better protect industries, infrastructure and, most importantly, one another. Today, the Near Surface Observatory (NSO), a scientific group under the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin, is helping to do just that. The NSO group focuses its impact on near-surface environments, or what Director Jeffery Paine dubs “critical life-supporting zones on Earth.”