Environment

The Topography of Plate Tectonics in Google Earth

March 6, 2014

It’s somewhat surprising to me that after all the years that Google Earth Blog has been around, we’ve never seen a file that focuses on the plate tectonics of earth. We’ve discussed various earthquakes numerous times, but never simply the plate tectonics. Thankfully, George at MyReadingMapped has built an excellent map that gives a great overview of the topography of plate tectonics.

From his site:

This documentary, in the form of a Google Map, attempts to put some real world topography to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Plate Tectonic map shown below that is featured on Wikipedia’s Plate Tectonics page. With the above Google map you can see the actual land and submarine topography that form the various tectonic plates. You can see the mid ocean ridges, ocean trenches, submarine volcanoes, and thermal vents that form the edges of the plates rather than rely on an abstract map like that shown below.

As with most of the work that George does, he’s included quite a few details. You can view the full map here or use this link to grab a KML file of it.

For more information, check out the full blog entry on MyReadingMapped. Great work George!

Adopt a shark and track it in Google Earth

February 26, 2014

David Shiffman at Southern Fried Science has come up with a very innovative way to attract donations to shark feeding ecology project. If you make a donation of over $3,000, you will be able to name the shark and track it in Google Earth for up to two years!

Their project has raised over $6000 so far (more than double their original goal), so it seems to be in good shape. From the project website:

We will be using a non-lethal research technique called stable isotope analysis to help understand the diet and food web interactions of several species of sharks in coastal South Florida, information that will help fisheries and wildlife managers to better conserve and protect them!

You can read more about this project over on the Southern Fried Science website.

View global warming trends with this new tool from UEA CRU

February 10, 2014

The University of East Anglia Climate Research (UEA CRU) has released an excellent new interactive layer for Google Earth that show detailed temperature records for 6,000 weather stations around the world — with more than 20,000 graphs in all!

It’s an impressive amount of data to display, the use of Google Earth makes it easy to browse and explore. You can grab the KML file here or read more about it on this page at the Met Office Handley Centre website.

(via The Guardian)

Viewing the Topography of the Thermohaline Circulation of the Oceans in Google Earth

December 26, 2013

With that mouthful of a title, our friends at MyReadingMapped have again created a very interesting map for us to check out. In their words:

If you do an image search for the Thermohaline circulation, what you get are lots of maps without any submarine topography as though all the undersea mountains, canyons and basins have little effect on the Deep Sea Current. All the the maps are oversimplified in order to get the concept across and they don’t include the Antarctic Bottom Water (aka Antarctic Brine) that has an affect on the Thermohaline Circulation. So my map of the Thermohaline Circulation, being done in a Google Map, enables you to see the actual undersea features that shape one of the prime factors of our climate system and how the Antarctic Bottom Water weaves in between.

You can read more about it on their site here or grab this KML file to view it in Google Earth. You can also read more about the project here:

In addition, it seemed to me that if Tambora had such an impact on the Thermohaline Circulation as to create the Little Ice Age, that any submarine volcanoes and thermal vents along the path should also have an impact on the Thermohaline Circulation at any one point in time or another. So I included them as well along with the impact of melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica and their impact on the Deep Water Formation transfers between Surface Currents and Deep Currents. And, I linked several articles on various factors on the impact on the Thermohaline Circulation on climate change and the disruption of the Thermohaline Circulation by melting glaciers and volcanic activity.

Great work, George!

Finding long barrows in Google Earth

December 20, 2013

We’ve shown you some work from Henry Rothwell’s Digital Digging site before (such as the Hillforts we showed you back in April), and felt it was time to head back out there to see what’s new. Along with a slick new mobile responsive design, Henry has a handful of great new features on the site. One of those new features is a great collection of “long barrows”.

Long barrows are prehistoric monuments, typically rectangular or trapezoidal in shape. Tim Darvill, author of “Long Barrows of the Cotswolds and Surrounding Areas” has been helping Henry build out this section of the site.

Thanks to the new changes that Henry has made to his site, he hopes to be able to “spend less time tinkering, and more time creating content”. He already produces quite a lot of excellent content, so we’re looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

In the meantime, if you’d like to keep up with the site you can grab their RSS feed or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Great work Henry!