Marine debris is everyone’s problem

Marine debris is a global problem affecting everything from the environment to the economy; from fishing and navigation to human health and safety; from the tiniest coral polyps to giant blue whales. Marine debris also comes in many forms, from a cigarette butt to a 4,000-pound derelict fishing net. To help show the breadth of this problem, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has created a KML tour for Google Earth. Download this tour in the Ocean Gallery. Or, watch the Google Earth video below to learn more about the marine debris.

The Fifth International Marine Debris Conference will take place March 20-25, 2011, in Honolulu, Hawaii. NOAA and the United Nations Environment Programme are co-organizers of the conference which will bring together international marine debris researchers, natural resource managers, policy makers, industry representatives, and the nongovernmental community. This conference will highlight research advances, allow sharing of strategies and best practices to assess, reduce, and prevent the impacts of marine debris, and provide an opportunity for the development of specific bilateral or multi-country strategies.

Marine debris is a problem we can solve together. Although marine debris is found worldwide, we can all help with the smallest actions. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and participate in local beach or stream cleanups. If we each do a little, together we can make a big difference. Dive deeper into this issue at http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/

Posted by Michele Jacobi, Environmental Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

From Bermuda to the Bahamas with the Sargasso Sea Expedition

Have you ever dreamed of setting sail across the Bermuda Triangle? Well, now you can follow the recent MBARI Sargasso Sea Expedition virtually by reading a series of posts from the cruise in Google Earth. To follow this sea expedition, download the complete log kml or visit the Earth Gallery.

MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) researchers and scientists from the University of Hawaii, University of Miami and Stanford University sailed 940 miles (1500 km) from Bermuda to the Bahamas across the North Atlantic Ocean through the Sargasso Sea. Their goal was to better understand this unique ocean habitat which is named for the free-floating brown algae Sargassum (also called “gulf weed”) and its associated community of marine life. Under the direction of Chief Scientist Ken Smith, the expedition team measured biodiversity and the impacts of climate change and carbon cycling to this ecosystem. They also learned more about deep ocean animals.

See a school of eels swarming around bait anchored to the sea floor.

The mission is the second voyage for the Schmidt Ocean Institute ship, Lone Ranger, whose Facebook page you can follow here, a former ocean tug that has been retrofitted for cutting-edge science investigations.

You can follow the MBARI Expedition Logbook to read a day by day account of the Expedition.

Posted by Jenifer Foulkes, Product Manager, the Ocean in Google Earth & Maps

Mission Blue: Follow an Expedition off Easter Island, Chile

Have you ever dreamed of embarking on an exciting expedition? Well, now you can follow a ship traveling the ocean in Google Earth. National Geographic and Oceana scientists in collaboration with the Chilean Navy are traveling on their next Mission Blue expedition to the remote Salas y Gomez Island. This island is 250 miles (390 km) east of Easter Island. They aim to discover what lies beneath these largely unexplored waters.

To follow along, open Google Earth and search for “Easter Island, Chile”. Look for the blue ship icon heading eastward as it travels to Salas y Gomez Island. Check back daily through March 10th to track this expedition (make sure the Places layer is turned on). The science team will share updates from the expedition as they travel east from Easter Island toward Salas y Gomez Island - including photographs, videos and links to the National Geographic News Watch blog. National Geographic and Oceana are members of Mission Blue.

We are also excited that we were able to quickly publish new imagery for the island in Google Earth and Google Maps, so that now anyone can visit Salas y Gomez virtually.

Click on the blue ship icon near Easter Island in Google Earth
to see the most recent post from the expedition.

In addition to the ship icon in Google Earth, you can also download the expedition KML or visit the Google Earth Gallery to download the file.

To bring this expedition to life for thousands of teachers and students around the globe, the National Geographic Ocean Education Program is working with Oracle® Education Foundation in the Oracle ThinkQuest online community. Educators can find lesson plans, submit questions to the research team while at sea, discuss with classrooms around the world and more. Visit the ThinkQuest website to apply to join the global community of teachers and students.

We hope you enjoy this virtual adventure at sea with the research team at Mission Blue.

Posted by Pete Giencke, GIS Data Engineer

Mission Blue: Return to the Gulf of Mexico

With support from Google, the Waitt Foundation, Hope Spots LLC and the National Geographic Society, Sylvia Earle and Mission Blue are embarking on an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico that will take a deep look at how the region is recovering from the five million gallons of oil spilled from the BP Deep Horizon Oil Spill last year. Follow along with the expedition by checking back daily and clicking on the blue ship icon in Google Earth located off of the US coast near Pensacola, Florida, where the expedition begins (make sure the Places layer is turned on). The science team will share updates and media from the expedition, including photographs, videos and links to Google maps on the National Geographic News Watch blog here.

Click on the blue ship icon near Pensacola, Florida in Google Earth
to see the most recent post from the expedition.

"Our goal is to identify areas with potential for Gulf ecosystem recovery," said Dr. Earle, founder of SEAlliance and recipient of the 2009 TED Prize that developed into Mission Blue, an international ocean conservation movement. "That is going to require protection of places healthy enough to replenish and rebuild populations. What’s happened here is far from over for the clams and oysters and other sea life critical to a healthy Gulf of Mexico."

The fate and impact of the spilled oil, gas and dispersants applied following the blowout into the Gulf are the subject of intense discussion by experts. The expedition team, assembled under the broad banner of the Mission Blue initiative, seeks answers to questions about the current status of key species and ecosystems.

Other research participants include: Dr. Thomas Shirley, Larry McKinney, Douglas Weaver and Harriet Nash from the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; Edith Widder and Brandy Nelson, Ocean Research & Conservation Association and Carl Safina, Blue Ocean Institute. Research dives are planned using a Dual Deepworker submersible made available to the expedition by the Waitt Institute.

You can also experience the expedition for yourself by downloading this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Jenifer Foulkes, Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth and Maps

Deep sea exploration with the joint Indonesia-USA Ocean Expedition

Come on a tour to never-before explored Indonesian waters. The INDEX-SATAL 2010 Expedition is the first-ever joint ocean research voyage by the Republic of Indonesian and the United States. To experience it yourself, watch a Google Earth YouTube video tour here or explore the area more interactively with the Google Earth plug-in on our Ocean Showcase.

The colored surface areas seen in the video represent underwater terrain data collected during the expedition. The data, highlight photos and videos have been incorporated into Google Earth so you can now explore them on your own by diving under the surface.

Much of the Coral Triangle remains unexplored, and this partnership aims to help reverse the decline of coral reefs in the area and to protect natural resources. The expedition began in the SATAL region around two island chains stretching north of Sulawesi. It was undertaken by scientists from the USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, and the Indonesian Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.

“Telepresence” was used to send data in real time to scientists who stood watch at Exploration Command Centers in Jakarta and Seattle. This same technology brought the excitement of the expedition to visitors at the Exploratorium in San Francisco as well.

Little Hercules, a remotely operated exploration vehicle, descended 6000 feet under the sea to capture images and videos of exciting sights like hydrothermal vents and creatures like the deep sea octopus seen below:

Mapping and discovery data from expeditions like this will help all organizations involved better understand ocean resources and how to protect them. More information about the still mysterious ocean will ultimately further economic and environmental initiatives such as the management of sustainable fisheries, the conservation of the marine environment and the preservation of fragile corals.

Dive deeper at Oceanexplorer.noaa.gov, or download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

By Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth and Maps

Ocean comes to Google Earth for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

We recently announced the arrival of ocean bathymetry and ocean layer content to Google Earth for Android. Today, with the latest release of Google Earth 3.1 for iOS, we’re proud to announce that you can now explore underwater landscapes and terrain on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Dive below the ocean’s surface to explore underwater canyons, or travel to the ocean’s deepest point, the Mariana Trench. Once underwater, simply swipe the screen with two fingers to “look around.” You can always reset your view by clicking on the north arrow on the iPad, or on the compass on the iPhone and iPod.

As with the desktop and other mobile versions of Google Earth, we’ve also added the “Ocean” layer, which features hundreds of photos and videos from more than 100 contributors curated by the Sylvia Earle Alliance.


This version also includes native support for the new Retina display, which means that if you have an iPhone 4 or the new iPod touch, you’ll get to enjoy an even sharper view of the world.

Google Earth 3.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is available now in the App Store, or navigate to http://m.google.com/earth in your mobile browser. You can also download Google Earth by scanning this QR code:

For help or additional information, visit our help center.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager

Dive into the ocean with Google Earth for Android

Especially during the summer months, staring out into the ocean leads to daydreams of sailing the open water, freedom and exploration. Now you can take three-quarters of this vast planet - the ocean - with you on your mobile device by downloading the new Google Earth 1.1 for Android.


With the release of this feature, you can escape the hustle and bustle of life on land and discover the marine world using Google Earth on your mobile device. For example, check out the landscape and terrain in Monterery Bay Canyon, which is larger than the Grand Canyon, by zooming in on Google Earth below the ocean surface just off the coast. Once underwater, you can use the “look around” button to tilt the view and see the extent of this great undersea canyon.

The latest version of Google Earth for Android also introduces the “Explore the Ocean” layer, which features hundreds of photos and videos from more than 100 contributors who are excited to share their stories of the sea. Plan or get a sneak peek of your next vacation during your daily commute by clicking on any of the little blue icons. The gold highlighted icons represent content from the Mission Blue Hope Spot initiative.


For those of you running Android 2.2, there are some more treats in store. Google Earth now supports Flash in balloons, so if you have the Flash player installed on your mobile device, you can watch videos right in the balloon. We’ve also made the program easier to navigate; for most devices, you can now use two fingers to “look around” and change your viewpoint, as an alternate to using the on-screen button. This makes it even easier to tilt your view to see mountainous landscapes or underwater canyons.

Google Earth for Android 1.1 is available in the Android Market today for most Android devices running version 2.1 or later. Explore the ocean anywhere.



Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager

Hope for Cousteau’s Ocean on World Oceans Day

Today is the second annual United Nations-designated World Oceans Day.

We celebrate this year by remembering the wonderful underwater films by Jacques Cousteau, as it would have been his 100th birthday on Friday. Take a tour of 10 locations from The Silent World and other film clips on our Ocean showcase following Captain Cousteau as he explored our connection to the Ocean World.

Take a highlight tour through 10 Cousteau film clips.

We as well have added the third Hope Spot tour with Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue foundation to the Ocean Showcase, where you can visit 5 more special places in the ocean in need of protection from the Chilean Fjords off South America, to the deep sea angler fish in the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone, to the surfing hippos off the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa to the Outer Seychelles and Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand. You can now explore any of the Hope Spot posts in the Ocean layer in Google Earth by clicking on the yellow highlighted circle icons in the ocean.

See Hope Spot content highlighted with yellow circle icons in Google Earth. Click on the flame icon in the Gulf of Mexico to get more information on the Deep Horizon oil spill.

Celebrate the opportunities and challenges of our shared resource, the Ocean. See the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion with new data, as that oil spill tragedy unfolds by clicking on the default on placemark southeast of New Orleans, USA.

Dive deeper on your own using Google Earth.

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager

Hope for the Ocean on Earth Day

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which provides us an occasion to highlight that part which covers 70% of the planet -- the Ocean. We’re releasing a second Hope Spots tour in the Ocean Showcase which features 5 more special places, compiled by the Mission Blue Foundation, which Dr. Sylvia Earle is targeting for protection as part of her 2009 TED wish.

The Hope Spots tour begins in the Gulf of Mexico deep reefs and the Flower Garden Banks. From there, you’ll find a grinning lemon shark in the Bahamas. Next, a video from National Geographic narrated by Dr. Earle, introducing the Patagonian Shelf hope spot. As you venture to the Coral Sea hope spot, you’ll meet a brightly colored, and in this case very talkative, fish known as a wrasse. The tour concludes in the Micronesian islands with a photo of explorers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in the Trieste bathyscaphe above the Marianas Trench, the deepest place on earth.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Captain Walsh’s plunge in the Trieste down nearly seven miles to the ocean's deepest point. For that remarkable achievement, he received National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, the society’s highest honor, as well as U.S. Department of the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award. Both were presented in ceremonies last week in Washington, DC. No one has ventured to "Challenger Deep" since.

There are many ways to make the ocean a part of your Earth Day: take a virtual dive with Ocean in Google Earth, read more on Mission Blue's Act page, take a look at Disneynature’s new Oceans film, or visit the Save my Oceans action site.

This photo was taken last week at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC with the Trieste in the background. Pictured from left are Dr. Don Walsh, who made the Trieste descent, Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch, who made the first-ever descent to the bottom of the North Pole, and Dr. Sylvia Earle.

Posted by Pete Giencke, Ocean in Google Earth engineer

Dive into Google Earth with marine scientists

Have you ever dreamed of being a marine scientist? With today's release of a Google Earth tour by the Pew Environment Group to introduce the 2010 Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation, you can put on your virtual scuba gear and join them in the underwater ecosystems, coral reefs, and shores around the world.

Narrated by actress and philanthropist Isabella Rossellini, the Google Earth tour introduces you to the work of the new Pew Marine Fellows: Daniel J. Conley, Omar Defeo, Beth Fulton, Peter Mumby, and Ben Sullivan.


The prestigious fellowship is awarded each year to five outstanding global leaders or teams for working tirelessly to preserve and protect the world’s oceans and marine species. For the next three years, these marine scientists will work on their original, research-based marine conservation project.


Each Pew Marine Fellow will communicate his or her results widely, so check back for more information about the program and the fellows at www.pewmarinefellows.org, or you can learn more about the fellows now by viewing the Google Earth tour on the 2010 Pew Marine Fellows website today!

Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach

Dive in to our Ocean Showcase

With the launch of our new Ocean Showcase, you can now tour the ocean from the comfort of your web browser using the Google Earth plugin.

Follow along as National Geographic explorer, Sylvia Earle, narrates a tour through highlights of the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth. You can pause the tour at any time to watch videos of the surrounding areas and marine animals, like the humpback whales below.

Take a ride with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), as their Western Flyer research ship works off the U.S. west coast. View the discoveries they've made, like the transparent-headed barreleye fish.

Visit some exciting shipwrecks like the World War II USS Truxton Destroyer, and see divers explore the shipwrecks with video from Eco-Nova's Shipwreck Central.

Take a narrated tour of some of the world's best dive sites with Wannadive.net and the best surf sites with Wannasurf.com.




In addition, you can see some of the highest resolution data available of the ocean with the Underwater Terrain tour. And finally, let NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, GLERL, take you on a tour of the Great Lakes with a special feature on Lake Superior.

Over the past year, many photographers, naturalists, government groups and non-profit partners have added photos and videos to the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth, providing a great introduction to lots of ocean features. Enthusiasts continue to add photos and ratings to Wannadive.net and Wannasurf.com, improving the Ocean Sports layers.

Anyone can be a desktop Cousteau. And we welcome more contributions. Go here to tell us about your ocean data.

To take the plunge, download any tour and open it in Google Earth, where you can explore many more exciting ocean photos and videos by checking the Ocean folder in the left-hand layers panel.

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager

Wander the seafloor like never before

If you happen to be a bathymetry buff, we've got an update that you'll be excited about (and if you're not, I hope you will be one by the end of this post). Most of the underwater terrain currently featured in Google Earth comes from the low-resolution US Navy/NOAA/SIO global grid. They're able to predict what the seafloor looks like using an extrapolation of water surface heights to estimate undersea mountains and canyons, based on radar data collected by satellite (if you're curious about this process, you can read Smith and Sandwell's more detailed explanation here). For most of the sea, that's all that's available. But a small part of the ocean has higher-resolution data available, based on echosounding sonar from ships, and it's now available in Google Earth.

Several organizations have provided their ship-collected data for publication in Google Earth to improve our undersea maps. The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping - Joint Hydrographic Center, has shared large swaths of underwater depth data collected from their expeditions north of Pt. Barrow, Alaska into the Arctic. The Living Oceans Society has shared their surveys off of the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, so you can now zoom around the Oglala seamount:


The California State University at Monterey Bay has collected high-resolution underwater terrain data for the entire California coast out to three nautical miles. We've published their data north and south of San Francisco Bay down to Ano Nuevo, where you can see the underwater ridges that elephant seals must navigate.


You can now also explore large undersea areas newly published from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), including our highest resolution underwater depth data featured to date: 1-meter terrain collected by MBARI’s Autonomous Underwater mapping Vehicles in Monterey Bay Canyon (see screenshot below), which is an underwater canyon larger than the Grand Canyon nestled between Santa Cruz and Monterey, California. MBARI has also shared ship echosounding maps that they've collected on the Davidson seamount, the Rodriguez seamount off of Santa Barbara, and terrain along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, as well as data collected off of the Oregon coast, from Beaver basin to the Heceta bank.






Photo caption: The MBARI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being launched from the Research Vessel Zephyr and one underwater. The MBARI Mapping AUV is a torpedo-shaped vehicle equipped with four mapping sonars that operate simultaneously during a mission. The sonars are a swath multibeam sonar, two frequencies of sidescan sonars, and a sub-bottom profiler. The multibeam sonar produces high-resolution bathymetry (analogous to topography on land), the sidescan sonars produce imagery based on the intensity of the sound energy's reflections, and the subbottom profiler penetrates sediments on the seafloor, allowing the detection of sediment layers, faults, and depth to the basement rock. All components are rated to 6000 m depth. The vehicle is launched on programmed missions and runs on its own battery power until it returns to the ship, as programmed, for recovery. The mapping AUV was christened the D. Allan B. in honor of MBARI's long-time Board member Dr. D. Allan Bromley of Yale University, who passed away in 2004.

Download this new undersea tour and open it in Google Earth to explore for yourself. Remember that only 5% of the world’s oceans have been explored, so much remains to be discovered.
We continue to publish new data in Google Earth, so check back. We thank all of the ocean exploring groups who have shared their data and welcome new contributions.

Posted by Jamie Adams, Geo Data Strategist

Celebrating the Ocean in Google Earth with our partners

The last few weeks have certainly been busy for the Ocean in Google Earth team. On May 28 in Santa Monica, CA, Heal the Bay held their Bring Back the Beach 2009 fundraiser, supporting work to improve water quality and do beach health monitoring across California. This year, Heal the Bay wanted to celebrate with the theme “A Sea of Possibilities” to recognize those whose thoughts, words, and actions demonstrate the powerful impact of seizing tremendous opportunities for positive change. The Ocean in Google Earth team was honored to be receiving the "Walk the Talk Award" and hope this inspires even more people to use the Ocean in Google Earth to learn about the issues that face this part of our planet. Barry Gribbon, CEO of Homerun Entertainment, produced this great Ocean in Google Earth Awards video - check it out to learn more. You can also have a look at their 19th Annual Beach Report Card, which uses the Google Maps API, to see the most current information about the health of California's coastlines.

Then, this past Saturday, at the Aquarium of the Pacific's Annual Awards Gala in Long Beach, CA, Director Jerry Schubel presented their Ocean Conservation Award to the Ocean in Google Earth. The event honors individuals and organizations that take a leadership role in protecting the environment. In addition, the event raises money to support the Aquarium’s education and conservation initiatives, which include teacher training, environmental education, mobile outreach programs, scholarship funds, and propagation programs.


The entire Ocean in Google Earth team would like to thank our over 100 partners. This includes large media groups like National Geographic and the BBC; researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography; non-profits like the Cousteau Society; aquariums; universities; NOAA, the US Navy, the Australian Great Barrier Reef Park Authority, and other government groups. We've also had individual contributors like Ray Hollowell in Hawaii and Sheila McKenna in Bermuda who have added photos, videos and stories to the Ocean content layers in Google Earth. This also wouldn't be possible without the many Googlers who contributed their time. One of our fantastic engineers, Emil Praun, who was instrumental to solving the ocean and land boundary problem, was fortunate to be able to attend the event.

You may remember the story of how Ocean in Google Earth came to be, following a conversation between Sylvia Earle and John Hanke three years ago. And now, as of February of this year, hundreds of millions of Google Earth users can go take a dive and see the oceans for themselves. As a piece of software, Google Earth is only as good as what you do with it. A number of our partners have used this as a way to tell their stories, and now you can go explore and add your own photos and videos, and share what you find with others. We are very excited to continue to work with the ocean community to enrich this canvas and make it an even more powerful educational tool. The Aquarium of the Pacific is rolling out teaching kiosks which will have the embedded Google Earth plug-in featuring some wonderful ocean content.

As Sylvia always says, "With knowing comes caring, and with caring, there's hope."

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Business Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth