See the seafloor like never before on World Oceans Day

Only a tiny fraction of our oceans have ever been explored. As a matter of fact, we know more about the surfaces of Mars and the Moon than we do about our own ocean floor. So in honor of World Oceans Day, we collaborated with Columbia University to add more ocean seafloor terrain to Google Earth than has ever been available before. With the addition of Columbia’s Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) synthesis data, you can explore half the ocean area that has ever been mapped, an area larger than North America.

The red lines show new seafloor data from Columbia, CSUMB and UH.

Our partners at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia have curated 20 years of data from almost 500 ship cruises and 12 different institutions. See the full GMRT attribution layer in the Earth Gallery to learn more. High-res underwater mapping is vital to understanding how tsunamis will spread around the globe. For example, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) created a Tsunami spread map after the Japan earthquake to allow anyone to visualize the wave spread.

To get started, dive under the ocean surface by clicking any ocean in Google Earth and explore underwater volcanoes, trenches and sea mountain peaks. You can also download this Seafloor Updates kmz file to take a tour of the new high-resolution data.


Explore the Ocean Seafloor tour and others on the Ocean Showcase.
Our 2011 Seafloor Tour video highlights some of the amazing places you’ll find in Google Earth, like the Mendocino Ridge, where the massive Juan de Fuca Plate slides toward western North America.


Deep Sea Vents tour video.
Continue exploring with the Deep Sea Vents Ridge 2000 Google Earth tour, which includes the deepest volcanic eruption ever captured on video at the West Mata volcano, near Fiji. Twenty additional ocean education posts from Ridge 2000 can be found in the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth; download this kmz to see them all.

Complete your tour, by checking out the recently published University of Hawaii at Manoa's 50-meter seafloor synthesis for the US Hawaiian islands and California State University Monterey Bay’s new data for Cordell Bank and the Gulf of the Farallones off the west coast of California.

We hope our new high-res terrain data inspires you to dive into the unknown world that is the ocean and discover the many underwater treasures that lie beneath.

Posted by Jamie Adams, Ocean in Google Earth Team

Know when your bus is late with live transit updates in Google Maps

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Often when I’m taking public transit, I arrive at my stop on time only to anxiously check my watch and look down the street for my bus, which is running late once again. Those extra minutes I’m forced to wait seem like an eternity, and the only information I can access on my phone is when the bus was supposed to arrive.

Starting now, Google Maps for mobile and desktop can tell you when your ride is actually going to arrive with new live transit updates. We partnered with transit agencies to integrate live transit data in four U.S. cities and two European cities: Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid and Turin.



When you click on a transit station or plan a transit route with Google Maps and there are delays or alerts related to your trip, you’ll now see “live departure times” (indicated with a special icon) and service alerts.

Live transit departure times after tapping on a station

Live service alerts when receiving transit directions

Live departures and alerts on desktop

We’re working with our public transit partners to help them provide live data to more people in more cities. You can get live transit updates in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile (requires Android 1.6+), as well as Google Maps on all supported desktop and mobile browsers.

Posted by Sasha Gontmakher, Software Engineer

Imagery Update - Week of May 31st

The Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery Team has just published its first batch of satellite and aerial imagery for June, and as always, there are all kinds of fascinating sites and features to check out.

Our first example image shown below is of the Sacred Heart church and its famous gilded dome located on the Notre Dame campus in Notre Dame, Indiana. A church has continuously occupied this site since 1830 and the current basilica foundation was laid in 1868. This aerial imagery was acquired in late April, 2011.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
When you’re done checking out the beautiful Notre Dame campus imagery, zoom over to Oregon and explore our new aerial imagery of the Salem region acquired this past summer. Below is a section of the Oregon Garden, a botanical garden located in Silverton. In the upper-right corner, you can see the only Frank Loyd Wright building in the state, the Gordon House. This home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was envisioned as a model of affordable homes for the local working-class citizens.

Oregon Garden, Silverton, Oregon
Finally, here’s a satellite image taken in December 2010 of the San Cristóbal Volcano. This active volcano rises above the town of Chichigalpa, locted in Chinandega, Nicaragua. In the image, you can see the gas and ash clouds emanating from the volcano’s caldera. These clouds and prevailing winds have served to remove all vegetation from the volcano’s southwestern flank.

San Cristóbal Volcano, Chichigalpa, Chinandega, Nicaragua.
Do you have a place you love for which you’d like to receive a notification when the Earth and Maps Imagery team updates the site? We’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:
Fresno, CA; Huntington, WV; Laredo, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Manchester, NH; San Francisco Peninsula, CA; Salem, OR; Soldotna, AK; Southbend, IN; Sumter, SC; Victoria, TX.

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:
Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, St. Helena, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia.

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist

Our Runners vs. Cyclists Flagstaff Challenge, in 3D

Most office rivalries rise to a boil at conference tables and water coolers. At Google’s Boulder office, our grudge matches play out across topo lines. Last week, our third annual “Flagstaff Challenge” blasted off up Flagstaff Road, Boulder, Colorado’s signature hill-climb. Over 1,500 feet of elevation gain, the Flagstaff Challenge (mapped below) attempts to answer our office’s ultimate water cooler question – what’s really faster: two wheels or two feet?

Bloggers in the office fired up Google’s KML Embed Gadget to cook up an embedded Google Earth course map (if the map below is not in 3D, try installing the Google Earth plug-in, then start embedding KML’s on your own site!).



As our route map shows, Flagstaff’s paved switchbacks criss-cross its running trail all the way up to the finish point, making this slice of topography perfect for an office grudge match between cyclists and runners.

While there was a good bit of trash-talking over GMail and in the halls leading up to the Challenge, Googlers generally prefer to let data speak for itself. Minutes after our team returned to the office, folks were already using Google Earth’s GPS tools to visualize tracks and dissect elevation profiles recorded on their My Tracks app or fitness units.

And yes, a few folks from the Docs team even fired up spreadsheets to run statistical analyses on the finish times. After accounting for outliers (those un-named Geo folks who actually got lost!), it turns out that there was no statistically significant difference between the cyclists and the runners. That just means our office feud will have to simmer for another year; enough time to sharpen our fitness and also the Geo tools we use to share and analyze our weekday warrior exploits!



Posted by Mark Harrison, Geo Community Manager

Map Maker mapping workshop and competition

On May 21 and 22, 2011, we hosted a series of Google Map Maker events in Rabat, Morocco. The events included presentations at the g|Maghreb developer days, and a mapping workshop which took place at the nearby Fondation Mohamed VI. The same evening, we launched a one-week online mapping competition (read on for the results!).

This year’s mapping workshop in Rabat built on the success of a similar event, which took place last year in Casablanca. It was organized by Amine, Mounir and Zohir, official Map Maker advocates from Morocco, in partnership with Evans and Jannine, Googlers working in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

The objective of the event was to introduce Map Maker to new users and illustrate that many Moroccans all over the world are helping to improve Google Maps through Google Map Maker. The audience was comprised of over 130 attendees - mostly students, young professionals and developers. They learned how anyone can use Google Map Maker to add to and update maps in over 180 countries and regions. The result is more comprehensive and accurate local maps for millions of people to see in Google Maps and Google Earth. These amazing time-lapse videos of Rabat, Casablanca and Fes show the impressive progress of mappers in Morocco.

The day kicked off with an introduction from Evans. He welcomed the audience and introduced our official advocates, who then took the stage. They engaged the audience with powerful stories of how they got involved with Map Maker and became top mappers. Their passion and enthusiasm was clearly infectious. They also led a demonstration with the audience participating actively, asking and answering questions. We also recognized major contributions made by some of the power mappers in the audience by honoring them on stage.

“I was astonished to discover that my city is not mapped. There was only its name, so I felt a little bit sad and excited at the same time, because I will get the chance to contribute in making my city known around the world.” - Siham K.

Before ending the day, we announced a one-week online competition open exclusively to attendees of the mapping workshop. It concluded just a couple of days ago with impressive results. We are thrilled to announce the winners -- congratulations to Jalal L. in first place, Ilyasse M. in second place, and Mohammed Y. in third place!

It is not too late to register for and participate in another online Map Maker competition focused on mapping Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (click here for more information and to register).

Congratulations again to our winners! Thanks again to everyone involved in this event -- please stay tuned for more about Map Maker and future mapping workshops in the region. You can view more photos here and find more information at mappingmorocco.com or on Twitter.

We invite you to join a local Map Your World community forum and start mapping at google.com/mapmaker. Happy Mapping!

Posted by Jannine Versi, Product Marketing Manager

Run Anywhere in the World With iFit Live Powered By Google Maps

(Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

Editor’s note: From time to time we like to showcase how our customers are building fun and innovative products with Google Maps. Colleen Logan, VP of Marketing for Icon Health & Fitness, explains how a Google Maps API Premier powered treadmill helps exercisers reach personal fitness goals.

Most people use Google Maps for reasons of pure function: Where is that new restaurant? How do I get there? How long will it take? We thought Google Maps could be used for an entirely different purpose – as entertainment while working out on the NordicTrack home fitness equipment.

People buy fitness equipment for a range of reasons – train for a race, lose weight or simply stay in shape – but a universal challenge for most is staying motivated and finding the time to exercise. In order to reach their goals, more people are turning to technology for time-saving, motivating exercise. We thought the visuals provided by Google Maps, combined with our fitness products and iFit website might be so compelling, consumers would have more fun and stay on track. Even if the only time you can squeeze in exercise is in the evenings when kids are asleep in or in the early, snowy mornings of winter before a long day at work, the iFit exercise equipment can bring the experience of exercising on varied terrain into your home.



For example, if you wanted to experience a run through San Francisco’s hilly terrain, you can go to the iFit website and draw a running route on Google Maps. When you get on one of our treadmills, such as the NordicTrack Elite 9500 Pro, the treadmill pulls up Google Maps on the screen with the newly drawn running route. The treadmill mimics the incline of the real world route you are running, thanks to the elevation service of the Google Maps API. The runner experiences a real life running route by seeing the runner’s location move about Google Maps with Street View images flying by a she reaches new personal records.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise Team

Europe’s best kept secret revealed in 3D

Brussels is one of Europe’s best kept secrets. As Belgium’s charming capital city, many have enjoyed living there, ranging from Victor Hugo and Karl Marx to Jean-Claude Van Damme. Now, you can discover the riches of Brussels in a virtual 3D visit with Google Earth.



Several thousands of 3D buildings have been added to the city’s map. Using Google Maps with Earth view or Google Earth’s “3D Buildings” layer, you can now visit the city to experience its rich architectural history. See the KML tour in the Google Earth Gallery to take a virtual tour of the 3D landmarks for yourself.

The place to start is the Grand Place / Grote Market, Brussels' central square. Its 17th century landmark guild houses are richly decorated with sculptures, gables and gold patterns and are said to hold the secret formula of alchemy engraved in its facades.

From there, you are only a virtual stones-throw away from the Royal Palace and its neo-classical Place Royale, which was built upon the ruins of Charles Quint’s palace and housed the famous Order of the Golden Fleece's treasure. Today, you’ll find the Magritte museum there, beautifully presenting the life and work of one of the world’s best-known surrealists.

Swivel around to see the impressive Palace of Justice, Brussels’ law courts which presides over the city skyline.

En route you will pass the Notre-Dame-du-Sablon church, one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the city.

The next stop is the Cinquantenaire Jubilee Park with its arch built in 1880 to celebrate the 50 years of independence. The large warehouses you see next to the arch used to hold the Mundaneum: the largest historical attempt to categorize and organize the world’s knowledge and make its accessible to all, back in 1900.

Perhaps the most well-known landmark in Brussels is the Atomium, an all-metal building built in 1958, in the shape of an iron atom magnified 165 billion times. From the Atomium, turn around and look back for the best panoramic view on Brussels.

Before leaving Brussels, stop by the European Parliament where 27 nations are slowly but surely morphing into a prosperous and peaceful union. Google Belgium’s office is located nearby, can you spot it?

When you’re finished touring Brussels in Google Earth, head north to Antwerp, where citizens are actively modeling their city with free 3D tools from Google.

You think this is cool? If you’d like to get started modeling your town, you can get started quickly with Google Building Maker (where available).

Enjoy the tour!

Posted by Julien Blanchez, Country Marketing Manager Belgium