Japan
In March, 2011, Japan was hit by a major earthquake, which caused the devastating tsunami that we’ve all heard about. As with similar events in the past, the geo community quickly responded with helpful maps and other resources that were of great value to those affected.
By later the same morning after the earthquake hit, there were already a variety of great resources which we summarized here.
The same types of maps and resources are built for most major natural disasters around the world, and it’s amazing that Google Earth can be used in such a great way.
Jane Goodall
Back in early 2006, the Jane Goodall Institute became the first blog to geotag their blog entries, and they made some nice technical improvements to the blog later that year. The next year Google launched their Google Earth Outreach initiative, which added layers to Google Earth to show off some of the great work that organizations such as the Jane Goodall Institute do.
Today you can find layers such as this one (and many others) under the [Global Awareness] Layer in Google Earth.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.