We recently came across this map in the Maps Gallery which alerted us to the the fact that Google Earth (and Maps) has imagery taken soon after the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa Valley, California in August. To find out when and where the earthquake took place, we can use the ‘Earthquake’ layer in Google Earth (found in the ‘Gallery’ layer). According to the marker on that layer, provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the Earthquake took place at 10:20:44 UTC on August 24, 2014, which was 3:20 a.m. local time. The latest imagery in the region is dated August 24, 2014, and judging from the shadows, was taken in the early afternoon. The whole area has the new 3D imagery, which is created with aerial photography captured before the earthquake, so to see the imagery from 24th August, turn off the 3D buildings layer. You will also not see the imagery in Google Maps, because it also shows the 3D imagery and has no way to turn it off or view historical imagery.
Although hundreds of buildings were damaged, very few collapsed, so in most cases the damage is not visible in the satellite imagery.
The map we referred to above highlights one of the buildings that partially collapsed during the quake, as seen in this news article.
An earthquake damaged building showing debris in the road and a crowd of onlookers.
Four homes burnt down in fire in mobile home park. See this news article.
Collapsed car port roofs. See news article here.
Water on road from ruptured water pipes.
Download this KML file
to view the locations in Google Earth.
For our many other posts about earthquakes and the tools in Google Earth relating to earthquakes you can go here.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
This is not satellite imagery, it’s Google’s own.
…aerial imagery.
Thank you for the correction. Do you have any more information about how it was captured?