# Does Google Earth include the entire ocean?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 9, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891 "2013-05-09T14:47:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/1 "2013-05-09T14:47:26Z")

</div>

Is the entire ocean visible on Google Earth, i.e. if i wanted to use my mouse to “travel” from NYC to London would I actually see the entire span of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the two cities or, for practical reasons, does Google omit long stretches of ocean since (I AssUMe) there’s probably not much interest in viewing it in its entirety?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/2 "2013-05-09T14:54:31Z")

</div>

Google earth includes seafloor terrain data, but this video claims that “50 percent” of the ocean is mapped. I can’t see a date on the video, maybe more has been done since then.

[http://www.google.com/earth/explore/showcase/ocean.html#tab=ocean-seafloor](http://www.google.com/earth/explore/showcase/ocean.html#tab=ocean-seafloor)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/3 "2013-05-09T15:11:04Z")

</div>

Even if their data didn’t include seafloor terrain, it would be misleading to eliminate it. Also, assuming that it is uninteresting to all users is probably a bad assumption. You need to be able to find islands, including tiny isolated ones like Tristan De Cunha. And remember that Google Earth supports specialized layers to be shown on top of the data. Somebody might want to have a “marine charts” layer that would make the stretches of water very interesting to users of that layer.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/4 "2013-05-09T16:16:00Z")

</div>

> [@yabob](#):
>
> Also, assuming that it is uninteresting to all users is probably a bad assumption.

Well, as I alluded to in my OP, it’s probably not just coincidence that you can’t spell “assume” without “ass.” 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eltro102](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eltro102](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eltro102)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/5 "2013-05-09T20:46:41Z")

</div>

i think they have satellite level data for the ocean, but not aerial-photo level

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/6 "2013-05-09T21:49:33Z")

</div>

And don’t ask about street views!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/7 "2013-05-09T23:57:03Z")

</div>

Wouldn’t omitting ocean change the circumference of the planet? What would they put in its place, whitespace?

Now, maybe certain areas of the ocean don’t have the same level of detail as coastal areas, but deleting ocean altogether would… break the world, wouldn’t it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/8 "2013-05-09T23:58:37Z")

</div>

> [@Irishman](#):
>
> And don’t ask about street views!

[What’s the worst that could happen?](http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff117/norma1938/Shark.jpg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/9 "2013-05-10T00:23:29Z")

</div>

> [@Reply](#):
>
> Wouldn’t omitting ocean change the circumference of the planet? What would they put in its place, whitespace?
> 
> Now, maybe certain areas of the ocean don’t have the same level of detail as coastal areas, but deleting ocean altogether would… break the world, wouldn’t it?

Fair enough. In light of Yabob’s response it was probably kind of a stupid question on my part. However, until today, I always regarded Google Earth as something that existed mainly for the benefit of real estate agents and stalkers, thus I would have considered any time, energy, or other resources spent on the ocean to be a waste.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/10 "2013-05-10T00:38:09Z")

</div>

> [@skdo23](#):
>
> Fair enough. In light of Yabob’s response it was probably kind of a stupid question on my part. However, until today, I always regarded Google Earth as something that existed mainly for the benefit of real estate agents and stalkers, thus I would have considered any time, energy, or other resources spent on the ocean to be a waste.

I’ve seen it used for visualizations of a lot of things, especially concerning the natural world. The Santa Cruz ocean museum uses it to demonstrate something (forgot what), the California Academy of Sciences uses it in some of their earthquake presentations, there are non-profits that map redwoods and birds with it, etc. It’s a useful base layer of free satellite imagery upon which people can add their own data layers. There is [historical scientific imagery available](http://earthengine.google.org/#intro), for example, depicting everything from deforestation to coastal area changes. Some [US government agencies](http://freegovinfo.info/node/2660) also release Google Earth-compatible datasets. There was also a project tracking and visualizing (as an oceanic example) cross-continental debris from the Fukushima explosion.

Google Earth is a general-purpose, lightweight alternative to full-fledged [GIS software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIS), and Google sells a Pro license to organizations that want to use its more advanced features. I would hope they would at least get the basic sizes of the oceans done correctly. And before Google bought the program, it was developed by a company called Keyhole who marketed it primarily to professionals. It wasn’t until the buyout that a free consumer version was made available.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/11 "2013-05-10T00:45:44Z")

</div>

> [@skdo23](#):
>
> Is the entire ocean visible on Google Earth, i.e. if i wanted to use my mouse to “travel” from NYC to London would I actually see the entire span of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the two cities or, for practical reasons, does Google omit long stretches of ocean since (I AssUMe) there’s probably not much interest in viewing it in its entirety?

ITS FAKE !. What would the point of showing people 1000’s of km’s of ocean waves and wind ripples ?

Most of the ocean is shown as a computer generated model representing the terrain of the floor, to a very rough scale. There are _tracks_ which are where more accurate sonar soundings are added into the estimates produced by measuring the ocean surface, then estimating the gravity that causes that and then estimating the ocean floor that causes the gravitational differences!.

In some parts the ocean floor is just a flat model , just a basic filler to avoid it being a black hole.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bob\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@Bob\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_X)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/12 "2013-05-10T03:59:32Z")

</div>

> [@Irishman](#):
>
> And don’t ask about street views!

They’re going to equip some gulls with Google Glasses!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/13 "2013-05-10T05:10:40Z")

</div>

> [@Bob\_X](#):
>
> They’re going to equip some gulls with Google Glasses!

And buoys!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/14 "2013-05-10T12:28:30Z")

</div>

This is a bit of an odd question, as it can be answered just by looking at Google Maps/Earth.

You can [see clearly](http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51.165567,-4.242783&spn=0.071691,0.11055&t=h&z=13) that the real photograph ends just offshore, and fades into a plain blue shaded relief map of the sea bed.

Where there are islands, you get little [patches](http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=49.93708,-6.348724&spn=0.588671,0.884399&t=h&z=10) of real imagery in the blue.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-google-earth-include-the-entire-ocean/657891/15 "2013-05-10T14:27:02Z")

</div>

From [this article](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16517-google-ocean-adds-detail-to-the-depths.html)in New Scientist:

> [@](#):
>
> Google’s usual satellite imaging can’t peer through deep water to map the seabed. Instead, sound is the tool of choice when mapping the ocean floor. Passing sonar arrays over every patch of ocean is beyond even Google’s means, so it has had to rely on the US navy for much of the information. As a result, some “sensitive” areas are blank. Other navies and research institutions around the world also provided data, helping Google Earth’s software engineers to stitch together a map with a resolution in the order of 500 to 1000 metres. In areas where a lot of research groups operate, such as Monterey Bay in California, the resolution is down to a couple of metres - better than most of the land maps in Google Earth.

So the visual and satellite mapping covers the ground terrain and islands, and quickly gets blended at the edges to the ocean floor mapping that is done with sonar. You can see the blending and smearing at different resolutions when zooming around continental and island edges. You can also see edge lines from different map segments of visible images. The ocean floor mapping is presented as a computer generated image from the terrain data, the various blue shades to indicate depth.

[Another article](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/10/google-seafloor).

Even [more detail](http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/2/411.full)on the kinds of sonar mappers available.

> [@](#):
>
> While aerial and satellite imagery are widely used in the discrimination and mapping of terrestrial habitats, these techniques have a much more limited application to seabed-habitat mapping, where they are restricted to very shallow waters (always \<15 m, and usually \<6 m in temperate waters). Even under these conditions, surface effects, light attenuation (which varies with depth and wavelength), and other water column effects, combined with the general problems encountered in the use of entire aerial and satellite imageries, hinder consistent interpretation of images. Aerial photography provides better resolution, and systems like compact airborne spectrophotographic imager (CASI) have been employed in several studies of seabed habitats, such as coral reefs ([Mumby, 1999](http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/2/411.full#ref-17)) and sea grass meadows (e.g. [Kendrick _et al_., 2002](http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/2/411.full#ref-11)). In general, the use of such systems is limited in temperate waters to the littoral and sub-littoral coastal fringes, but in very shallow waters, where it is not practicable to deploy acoustic systems, may provide the only means of acquiring remotely sensed data.