20 April 2010
Where on Google Earth? #199
Posted by Callan Bentley
For the first time ever, I have won a Where on Google Earth? that Ron Schott hosted, heavy on the clues.
Now that it’s my turn to host, I’d like to spice things up a bit with a dynamic view. Using Google Earth’s historical imagery feature (the little “clock” button up top), I managed to see this suite of very different views of the exact same spot over time:
Click through twice for full-sized versions. Note in particular how much this scene changes between photos #2 and #3, only three days apart! This must be a very dynamic place indeed. You have already noted of course the one constant in these images, down there in the southeastern corner.
No Schott Rule on this one… have fun! To play the game, find the location and leave its latitude and longitude in the comments of this blog post, as well as an explanation of the geological significance of this location.
Remember that this is #199, which means that the winner of this episode of Where On Google Earth? gets the honor of hosting the 200th episode. “200,” like “30,” is a nice round number… hint, hint.
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.
No Schott Rule? Guess I get to tell you that it’s Spirit Lake, just north of Mount St. Helens, WA.
46.266024° N, 122.138941° W
The photos are showing the changing position of the logjam floating on the surface of the lake. During the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, part of the debris avalanche flowed into Spirit Lake; this raised the lake level ~60 meters and displaced enough water to wash up the surrounding slopes. The water picked up the trees that had been downed by the lateral blast and carried them back into the lake, where they’ve been floating ever since.
Excellent choice, with the anniversary of the eruption coming up in a few weeks!
Well done: the honor of #200 is yours…
Love the idea to use the historical photos, too. We’re all going to have to come up with equally cool ways to use the features in Google Earth…
Thanks — for anyone who didn’t catch it the “anniversary” coming up is the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.
That was a cool one, congrats to Tuff Cookie … utilizing the historical images is a good idea and just what Wo(G)E needs to keep evolving
The anniversary edition is up:
http://magmacumlaude.blogspot.com/2010/04/earth-day-edition-where-on-google-earth.html