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Google Earth To Show Ocean Floor
f1vlad writes "Google is expected to announce the addition of ocean floor imagery to its Google Earth project, which will complete digital representation of our planet. 'The existing site, to which an estimated 400 million people have had access, already includes three-dimensional representations of large cities around the world and includes images from street-level and aerial photography covering thousands of miles across Britain and elsewhere. The new additions to the website are expected to include views of the ocean, and portions of the seabed. They will also provide detailed environmental data that will enhance information about the effect of climate change on the world's seas and oceans.'"
Anyone want to buy a slightly used underwater marijuana farm?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Marianas Trench.
Can't wait to see how that looks.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I wonder if a few of my "special jobs" as a concrete mixer will show up on these maps. If so, anyone got a list of countries without an extradition treaty with the U.S.?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Perhaps now we'll be able to see those massive floating garbage islands in the Pacific Ocean that we're always hearing about.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
And now they'll have to adapt the vans that do the street level photography. Some fish are going to be quite surprised.
Who wouldn't want to spend a month in a van and take several hundred million identical pictures? (Any resemblance with your holidays is pure coincidence).
There are some other sites that not everyone will be pleased will be in the public domain.
How about the locations of sunken nuclear subs like the Thresher and the Russian sub the Glomar Challenger went after? There are some nuclear warheads still down there!
Aren't there also a couple of nukes still "lost at sea" but with the approximate locations known?
Also, how about the plutonium in the Apollo 13 Lunar Module that was impacted in "the deep Pacific"?
My point is with rent-a-submersible services available (I guess from primarily, you guessed it, Russian vendors) it might be possible to pick up some dangerous things. In addition there are a few ecological sites (some "black smokers") that Oceanographers have been trying to keep secret to preserve them. Other than that, it seems like a great idea!
"FTA: Although, so far, there has been only limited data collected about the sea floor, with just 10% of the habitat mapped at any useful scale for science..."
I wonder how is going to work, since I'm guessing they cannot really 'map' the bottom of the ocean in the same way they do surface objects. Satellites with radar, ships with sonar?
Stil, considering how vast the oceans are, even 10% coverage is pretty impressive.
check out the northwest coast of the US for a good example.
I don't know if this is an example of whats to come or if whats to come is going to be even better but I welcome higher resolution imagery of our planet.
In the land version we can see even people and cars. What we will see there? Submarines? Fishes? Coral formations? Our sunken economy?
Too late
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
The ocean is so large and so vast, that, if Google codes the images honestly, that, people will readily see that for the most part, the bottom of the ocean is generally unexplored, that measurements of deep waters are infrequent and not in very many areas. They will see a few tiny areas where things have been photographed extensively, but, those will be but small points on a very, very large map. All of this unknown will open up ocean climate claims to ridicule, as if, measuring a drop of water in the shallow end of the swimming pool can somehow categorize the whole thing.
This is my sig.
In Google Maps and Google Earth, Massachusetts is all aerial photography, because the state pays for and supplies it under an open content (but perhaps not Open Content) license. If you zoom in on the northeast US, you can see Massachusetts very well defined from a pretty high zoom.
Finally, the russians will be able to find Red October!
Nearly all the street-level photos on Google Maps are aerial rather than satellite. If you can see windows in houses or road markings, then they are definitely aerial. Publically available satellite imagery is rarely much better than 1m resolution but some of the best govenment operated satellites claim to have resolutions comparable to aerial photos (I've not seen any samples myself though).
already done.... http://www.google.com/mars/
ha! the street view car that hit the deer, the accident occurred about 3 miles from my house. In their defense, there are thousands of deer roaming the area, so many that car deer collisions are a daily thing, and it's not at all uncommon to see a carcass on the side of the road.
The undersea stuff is interesting because it might give a top-down view of wrecks if the wreck is in shallow water.
The terrestrial maps are outdated, I would love to see updated terrestrial maps instead of gazing at the ocean floor.
Well this will only detail the top, and maybe slightly angular, shots of wrecks. This will helpe us find lost wrecks. But as a diver I can tell you this will not replace scuba diving by any means....to see gorgeous coral, fish life, and go inside caves/wrecks is something you can only experience in person....video doesn't begin to capture the feeling...of being dinner for a school of barricuda :D
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Yeah, myself... I'm waiting for them to get Streetview of the ocean floor....
I would be more impressed if they updated all of the above water land maps. I live in Belize and our imagery hasn't been updated in about five years. Dave
Ubi est voluntas, ibi est via
Living in Iowa, I'm still waiting for my house not to look like a white blob. Random jungles and deserts already have better resolution than most of our state, and now it sounds like the sea floor will as well. I know Iowa isn't the biggest state out there, but can't we get a little love?