Google Earth: A Public Meeting Place for Diverse Earth System Data Glenn Richard, Stony Brook University

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly What’s good about Google Earth? 1.Easy to use 2.Lots of data 3.Base map always there 4.Large user community What’s bad about Google Earth? 1.Lacks the analytical ability of a GIS Tank farm in New Jersey

Some Geometries of GE Data Placemarks ~ESRI points Paths ~ESRI polylines Polygons ~ ESRI polygons Ground Overlays ~ESRI rasters Screen Overlays - Usually serves as a legend Photo Overlays 3D Models Eiffel Tower 3D Model created by Google in Google Sketchup

KML – Keyhole Markup Language Beowawe Power Plant Beowawe Power Plant Summar y Statistics ]]> e relativeToGround #msn_geothermal , ,0

Placemarks Geothermal Power Facilities placemarks by GAR Links to summary statistics from Geo-Heat Center

Helicopter Flight – October 4, 2006 Study of tidal wetlands on South Shore of Long Island Oblique aerial photos geotagged, using GPS and EXIF time data GE Pro can read GPX format

Paths Data from Quaternary fault data from Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy Vertical exaggeration of terrain layer set to 3.0 View tilted at 74 o from vertical

Polygons Volcanic Ash Beds: Georeferenced original map image in ArcGIS Digitized ash bed boundaries as ESRI shapefile Opened shapefile in Google Earth, saved it as KMZ Original map from Original map

Ground Overlays Geothermal favorability overlay from the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy

Strain rate Models for Southern California Map overlays for southern California topography and faults 2.5 million years ago, 1 million years ago, and at present, displayed on Google Earth, using a North American reference frame. Faults 1,000,000 YBP … From “Map Tools for EarthScope Science and Education” Funded by NSF

Measuring Things Using the Google Earth ruler to determine the length of the Garlock Fault from its eastern end to Tehachapi ( kilometers), and the displacement of the fault trace that has occurred between 1 million years ago and now in the vicinity of Tehachapi (8.79 kilometers). Timespan of visibility

Geotagged Photography and Video Panoramio Gigapixl Gigapan YouTube Gigapixl: Half Dome e Panoramio: Mono Lake Sunrise YouTube video: Old Faithful

Gigapan s Kaibab Trail (Grand Canyon) Enter panorama ]]> #panoramaStyle upperLeft , ,0 sphere Gigapan: Kaibab Trail – Grand Canyon Can rotate the camera’s viewpoint through the scene gigapan.org

Google Earth Pro vs Google Earth Free Google Earth Pro can open: GPS Data (GPX format) ESRI Shapefiles (.shp) Also, better print quality for images From Google Earth Pro, save the.shp or GPX data in KMZ format, so Google Earth Free users can open it

Tours Start and stop tour through selected object (Folder, for example) If folder contains a collection of placemarks, user will fly to the specified view for each one, in sequence. New York Landscape Regions in Google Earth

Google Earth offers a quick means of obtaining aerial imagery for a GIS. Can capture images from Google Earth, and use the gridded image to georeference the non-gridded image. The Grid Flax Pond Tidal Marsh, Long Island

Learning about Google Earth: KML Gallery Hurricane Katrina with Time Data by Brian Flood

Google Earth Community Forums Source of ideas and data Forum for educators

The Geobrowsers Session at AGU 2007: Oral and Interactive Poster Presentations Look for another Geobrowsers session at AGU 2008 From Declan DePaor: Embedding Collada Models in Geobrowser Visualizations: a Powerful Tool for Geological Research and Teaching From Jesse D. Varner: Historical Natural Hazards Data in Google Earth

Where should we go from here? Promote the practice of using Google Earth to foster an integrated Earth system perspective. Need to: Identify useful existing datasets Develop new datasets, where needed Identify existing “best practices” in education Develop new educational materials Continue to use other tools