Page 280 - Laboratory Manual in Physical Geology

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C. Use Google Earth to locate places on Earth. If you do not have Google Earth loaded on your computer, then do so
now. Go to http://www.google.com/earth/index.html and click on “Dowload Google Earth”. Read the Google Maps/Earth
Terms of Service (and uncheck the Google Chrome browser option of you do not want to install it), then click “Agree and
Download”. The installation will begin immediately and takes just a few minutes to complete on most computers. Open
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Google Earth and do the following:
1. Determine exactly the latitude, longitude, and elevation of your home place.
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a. Start by using the Google Earth “Search” option located in the upper lefthand corner of the screen. You can type in
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the name (e.g., Washington Monument) or address of your home place, then click on the “Search”. Google Earth
will then zoom in on the location. You can then change the zoom (in or out) using your mouse wheel or the plus-minus
slide bar in the upper righthand corner of the screen.

b. Next, place your cursor over your home place to locate its latitude and longitude more exactly. As you move the
cursor, notice along the bottom righthand edge of your screen that the latitude and longitude coordinates of the cursor
location are identified. (If you do not see degrees of latitude North or South and longitude East or West, then go to the
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top of the Google Earth screen and choose “Tools”, then “Options”. On that menu, under “Show Lat/Long”, choose
“Degrees, minutes, seconds”. Then click on “Apply” and “OK”.) Notice that more than just degrees of latitude and
longitude are indicated. For finer measurements of latitude and longitude, each degree can be subdivided (like a clock)
into 60 subdivisions called minutes ( ‘ ), and the minutes can be divided into 60 equal subdivisions called seconds ( “ ).
Record the exact location of your home place below in degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Latitude: ______________________________ Longitude: ______________________________

c. Notice that elevation above sea level (elev) is indicated

to the right of latitude and longitude at the bottom righthand edge of
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the Google Earth screen. What is the elevation of your home place? __________________________
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2. Experiment with the Layers of Google Earth to learn more about your home place . From the menu on the lefthand
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side of the Google Earth screen, open “Layers”. Experiment with turning layers on and off to see how it affects what
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Google Earth displays. For example, you may want to start by choosing Roads, Borders and Labels, Gallery, or More
to see what is available to display. When you are done, describe something that you learned about your home place or the
region around it by experimenting with the Layers.

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3. Measure a distance in Google Earth . Move your cursor over the toolbar icons at the top of the screen until you
identify the “Show Ruler” icon, then click on it to open the Ruler menu. Select the “Line” tab, and use the pull down
menu to select units of measurement. Then use your mouse to make a measurement using the ruler (by clicking on a
starting location and an ending location. Describe something that you measured and note the measurement.

4. Explore historical imagery. Again, move your cursor over the toolbar icons at the top of the screen until you identify
the “Show historical imagery” icon (a clock symbol), then click on it to open the slider of dates. Use your mouse to move
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the slider, and observe changes in the Google Earth images. Explore the region where your home place is located.
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Describe something that you learned using this feature of Google Earth .

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D. REFLECT & DISCUSS Based on your knowledge of Google Earth , suggest how it could be used to study the geology of
a region.

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