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Changes to the Earth’s biosphere have reached a critical point. It’s abundantly clear that we can no longer halt those changes that have resulted from humaninduced modifications to the Earth’s systems (1, 2). The climate crisis will fundamentally disrupt weather patterns, raise sea levels, alter biogeographic distributions, and much more.

Research across disciplines from archaeology to zoology shows that terrestrial environments comprise irreplaceable archives of past human and evolutionary activity. Our rapidly changing Earth presents a grand challenge for humanity: We must preserve or record our cultural and ecological heritage, along with information about habitats critical for biodiversity, before they are lost completely. But this challenge brings up a profoundly important question: How best do we accomplish this recording, as quickly and with as much detail as possible? Some of this documentation is already …