Steve Elkins Q&A | Explorer

[Music] There's a heat there, inscriptions right here. There are, yes, we hit P, guys. Wow, this is awesome!

I've been doing this for almost 20 years. This project captured my imagination, and to me, it's a privilege and very exciting to be able to discover something new and increase our knowledge of the planet that we live on. What could be better?

I'm definitely planning on going back. I mean, how could you not go back? And we made this great discovery; we have to follow through with it. So we hope to go at either the end of this year or the beginning of next year and try and figure out exactly what's going on there.

When we go back, we're definitely bringing a team of top archaeologists to excavate some of the things that we found and try and get a better understanding of what exactly was going on in the past.

We're going to be working with the Honduran government. They've been great; they've really been supportive and they're very interested in doing this the correct way. We're also getting support from National Geographic and private entities here in the United States.

In 5 to 10 years, it is my hope that there'll be some kind of a scientific research station built at the first site that we've been looking at. This will enable scientists from around the world, of all different disciplines, to come to study this very unique ecosystem as well as the cultural patrimony. I think this will be a great benefit for Honduras as well as the whole world at large. [Music]