New York ? A team of architecture experts say their digitized model of the Statue of Liberty could be used to rebuild the national landmark if it is damaged or destroyed in a terrorist attack.

Using a high-tech laser scanner to measure its surface from all angles, the team from Texas Tech University has been working for nearly two years to create computerized, three-dimensional drawings of the monument.

Officials with the National Park Service, which administers the statue and Mount Rushmore, called on the team to create the model it says could help create an accurate replica if any section of it were ever destroyed, the Daily News reported in its Sunday editions.

“Until Sept. 11, the only time we ever faced battles on our soil was in the Civil War, so most of our preparations, historically, were for natural disasters,” said John Burns, deputy director of the Park Service’s documentary division.

“Since we now face threats to the touchstones of our heritage, our history and our civilization, we are also now looking at new possibilities in terms of reconstruction,” he said.

Mount Rushmore also has been scanned into three-dimensional images, and the U.S. Capitol underwent computer scanning in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Daily News reported.

The 3-D images — recording height, width and depth — will be more detailed than the limited drawings left by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and Gutzon Borglum, the sculptors of Liberty and Rushmore, respectively. They also will be more complete than the unfinished plans left by the eight principal architects who built the Capitol between 1793 and 1868.

In a worst-case scenario, the scans could provide the means to replace the heretofore irreplaceable.

“If someone comes along with a suitcase bomb or a briefcase nuke and blows up a chunk of Thomas Jefferson, and his nose falls off, the 3-D representation would allow us to perform major reconstructive surgery on the mountain,” said Don Striker, superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.