Introduction to Google Earth Name Goals 1. To become proficient at using the basic features of Google Earth. 2. To recognize differences in coastal features between the east and west coast of North America. These direction refer to version 5.1 Part 1 (DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE USING AN MPC COMPUTER; GO TO PART 2): - If your computer has Google Earth installed already, skip to Part 2 Download Google Earth: Going to this URL will allow you to download the latest version of Google Earth. http://earth.google.com/ - click on Download and follow the steps from there Part 2 - Open Google Earth and wait for it to load. 1. Tool Bar on Left of screen - At the upper left is the Search box. In this box there is a tab called Fly to which acts as a search bar that will take you wherever you wish to go to in the world. -Enter 980 Fremont St, Monterey, CA into the text box and press Enter. Where are you? Please answer with a phrase other than 980 Fremont St, Monterey, CA. Monterey Peninsula College -Now the screen should look like the one to the right. What happens when you uncheck the little box? The location name disappears from the satellite screen What happens when you press the X? The location name disappears from the search screen -The box at the lower right is called Layers. -Be sure you always have Terrain checked. The others aren t so important
2. Enter Point Lobos State Reserve into the Fly To box and press Enter. 3. Located on the right hand side of the screen is a control panel that is hidden until you scroll your mouse over it (see image below). If the control panel does not show up, go to View>Show Navigation and click Automatically. Play with all the controls to learn what they do. Use the controls to change the viewpoint to one that is inclined and looks towards the south at the specific places that we went on our Pt Lobos field trip. Your eye altitude (number shown at the far lower right) should be between 800 m and 1.2 km. Show your instructor and have AGH him/her sign off here. The location of the N indicates the direction of view. In this case, the view is towards the south.
4. Note the dark translucent strip cross the bottom of the screen. It shows information about what you are viewing in Google Earth Starting from the left it shows the date that the digital image was taken of that area. Moving towards the center it shows the latitude, longitude, and elevation (respectively) of the location where your mouse is located. On the far right is the eye altitude, i.e., the distance above sealevel of an eye seeing the view. -Move the mouse around. Which of the following numbers change as you move your mouse around (You may want to circle more than one)? a. date of digital image b. latitude c. longitude d. elevation e. elevation of viewpoint 5. Manipulate the screen so that you can see down the Big Sur coastline a few kilometers. Let s play with a few of the options in Google Earth. Press Tools>Options. In the box that opens, make sure that the 3D View tab is pressed. In the Show Lat/Long area, experiment with switching between Decimal Degrees and Degrees, Decimal Minutes, pressing Apply each time. What changes? Which one is the same as the Monterey Bay Chart we worked on? The units for the location on the bottom of the screen changes. We used Degrees, Decimal Minutes Leave this one in Decimal Degrees. Experiment with the Elevation Exaggeration, changing it from 0.5 to 1.5 to 3, clicking Apply each time (if you don t see any difference, make sure that Terrain is checked in the Layers box see the bottom of p. 1). In the Show Elevation area, make sure that Meters, Kilometers is clicked. Leave the Elevation Exaggeration at 1.5. Now open the Options box again (Tools>Options ) and press the Navigation tab. In the Navigation area, turn off the Automatically tilt while zooming button. Turn on the Gradually slow the Earth when rotating or zooming button. Set the settings shown on this page each time we use Google Earth.
6. Note the toolbar across the top of the screen: Scroll your mouse across them to read about what each of them do. Note the ruler. Where is your hometown? Manipulate the screen so that you can both MPC and either your house or your hometown. If out of the area, use the ruler to measure the distance from your hometown to MPC. Be sure to use metric units (don t use smoots ). If in the area, use the ruler to measure the distance from your house to MPC Note that when the Ruler box opens up, there is a Heading listed. This is the same as a bearing. How far is it from the tip of Fisherman s Wharf to the MPC football field? 2.05 km What is the Heading from the tip of Fisherman s Wharf to the MPC football field? 161 degrees What is the elevation of the MPC football field (metric units)? 31 meters 7. Fly to 36.421959N, 121.915078W. This is Garrapata Beach. Manipulate the screen so that the view is highly inclined, the eye altitude is about 2 km, and the view is towards the south-southeast so that you can see Garrapata Beach and Highway 1 extending southwards along the coast. Note the terrain that generally lies between highway 1 and the top of the seacliff. What are these landforms called? Marine Terraces How did these landforms form? Uplift of wave-cut platforms by tectonic forces Now zoom out so that your eye altitude is about 10km. You re looking at the Santa Lucia mountains. Based on your answer to the previous question, why do you think there are such big mountains so close to the shore? Rapid uplift of the land relative to sea level due to tectonic forces
8. Fly to Wilmington, NC. Wilmington is located on the banks of the Cape Fear River. This is the location of Cape Fear Community College. Scroll southwards so that you follow the river to where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. You ve found Cape Fear, which Wikipedia tells me was originally named Cape Fair. Use control panel to manipulate the view to investigate the coastal region both north and south of Cape Fear. Zoom in and out so that the eye elevation is similar to what you used to investigate the Big Sur Coast, i.e., between 2 and 10 km. What are the coastal characteristics of the Cape Fear region (you are encouraged to look up the term barrier island to help answer this question)? Long, straight beaches, barrier islands, lagoons behind the barrier islands, low, flat-lying terrain inland from the shoreline. How do these coastal characteristics differ from those of the central California coast? In Central California there are mountains and marine terraces close to shore. The beaches are characterized by rocky sea cliffs and pocket beaches separated by rocky headlands. There are also bigger waves in central California. How do the tectonics differ between this east coast region and the central California coast? Central California is characterized by active tectonics related to the San Andreas Fault. The east coast is characterized by passive tectonics and a more tectonically stable environment. How do you think this tectonic difference influences or controls the differences in coastal characteristics you described above? The active tectonics of the central California coast cases the uplift that creates the sea cliffs and rocky headlands of the central California coast. The more passive tectonics of the
9. Let s travel about 270 km up the North Carolina coast to Cape Hatteras, location of one of the most famous lighthouses in the United States. Fly to 35.252568N, 75.525000W. For the remainder of this section, do not scroll the view at all. We ll zoom in and out, but don t move the view anywhere. Zoom out to about 350 km or so, so you can see where you are. Cape Hatteras is on one of the best examples of a barrier island that you re likely to find anywhere. Zoom back in to about 1 km. Press the X in the lower right of the Search box to get rid of the lat and long in the middle of the screen. Where is the lighthouse (look for its shadow)? a. in the middle b. northeast area c. northwest area d. southwest area e. southeast area In the toolbars across the top, turn on the historical imagery. Put the curser on the Mar 1, 1993 imagery, as shown above left. Where was the lighthouse in 1993 (look for its shadow)? a. in the middle b. northeast area c. northwest area d. southwest area e. southeast area Use the ruler to measure the distance from the lighthouse to the landward edge of the beach. What is the distance in meters? 41 meters Why do you think the lighthouse was moved? See http://www.nps.gov/caha/historyculture/movingthelighthouse.htm and read the first two paragraphs and the last paragraph, and look at the pictures. Why was the lighthouse moved? It was in danger of being washed away by wave erosion. Now put the curser on the Feb 19, 2004 imagery, as shown above, right. What changes occurred near the groin in the decade between 1993 and 2004? Draw a picture to help you explain. Drastic erosion took place south of the groin. In this area the sand must be moving from north to south along the beach. The groin trapped some of the sand north of the groin, leaving the area south of the Groin to be greatly eroded.
10. Now let s go back to the Monterey area on the west coast. Follow the instructor s directions to download the file called MontereySandAll.kml and open it with Google Earth by pressing the file>open buttons. This is all the sand data collected by MPC Oceanography students. a. Without moving the view from the opening scene, what patterns do you see involving sand composition? In other words, what generalizations can you make about the locations of sands of different compositions, if any? The sand is darker along the Marina to Sand City section and lighter along the Monterey Peninsula section. b. Again without moving the view from the opening scene, what patterns do you see involving the grain size of the sand? In other words, what generalizations can you make about the locations of the sands of different grain size, if any? Grain size is large along the Marina to Sand City section and variable on the Monterey Peninsula. c. Now move around in Google Earth to look at some of the beaches where students collected sand. You can click on the icons to see who collected it and what they thought the composition was. In particular, look at the length of the beaches on the Monterey Peninsula to see how they relate to grain size. What is the relationship between beach length and grain size on the Monterey Peninsula? The larger grain sizes are found at smaller pocket beaches. The smaller grain sizes are found at longer beaches like Asilomar and Carmel. Marina Sand City Monterey Peninsula
d. What additional differences do you see between the Monterey Peninsula and the Marina Sand City area. Focus your efforts in terms of the Emergent/Submergent and Erosional/Deositional coastlines we talked about in class. Summarize your analysis here: Monterey Peninsula Evidence of Emergent coastlines: Scalloped coast line, marine terraces Marina Sand City Evidence of Emergent coastlines: Not much Evidence of Submergent coastlines: Not much Evidence of Submergent coastlines: Flooded river valleys at Elkhorn Slough, Seaside, and Aguijito Lagoon. The long, gently curving beaches and the sand dunes resemble east coast beaches, which the textbook describes in the section on submergent coasts. Evidence of Erosional coastlines: Scalloped coastline, sea stacks, seacliffs are all classic evidence of erosional coastlines. Evidence of Erosional coastlines: Seacliff in the dunes. Also, the coastal armoring is great evidence. Evidence of Depositional coastlines: Not much Evidence of Depositional coastlines: The long, gently curving beaches and the sand dunes resemble east coast beaches, which the textbook describes in the section on submergent coasts.