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April 01, 2008
Google Earth April Fools Joke
Well, it turns out there is an April Fools Joke in Google Earth today after all! If you turn on the "Geographic Web" layer and then zoom all the way out (38000+ miles away from Earth) the Earth's continents merge into the theoretical Pangea (the way the continents may have appeared hundreds of millions of years ago). Here's a screen shot:
UPDATE April 3rd: Google took down this little joke on April 2nd. So, a lot of people didn't get to see it. Fortunately, I managed to capture a little video clip of it in action. Here's your chance to see what it looked like:
(Click here for higher quality version)
By the way, for a full animation showing the merging of the continents on Google Earth, check out this cool paleogeographic time animation by Valery Hronusov.
Posted by FrankTaylor at April 1, 2008 07:31 PM
Comments
Posted by: Christoph at April 2, 2008 03:37 AM
After assuring my installed version matches the one you listed, displaying the Geographic Web layer, and zooming as far out as I am able I was not able to view Pangaea. But, then again, it is now April Fools Day +1.
Posted by: Brian at April 2, 2008 09:55 AM
This egg kept messing up for me. Every time I zoomed out to 18,000 the earth would suddenly shoot off in the far distance til it was no longer visible. Just seemed like spaceNav became jumpy all of sudden. Would definitely be an interesting feature to keep in the layers menu all the time.
Posted by: Josh at April 2, 2008 06:01 PM
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Actually it might be an April Fools Joke as I don't manage to make Pangea appear on my screen. Or maybe it's due to the German language version?
I am not sure whether it's from the last update, but parts of Greece are now available in high resolution. (N38°30'; E22°50 to N38°45'; E23°02')
Greetings from Germany,
Christoph