# What's likely happening in this Google maps image? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 24, 2020, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862 "2020-08-24T06:02:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/1 "2020-08-24T06:02:14Z")
The white granular spots on part (but only part) of the pond. Similar area on a different pond (one I used to visit as a kid before that hideous subdivision was there and it was all pasture) a few miles south. https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.7863144,-82.521052&z=18&output=embed&dg=ntvb ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/2 "2020-08-24T06:16:26Z")
Took me a while to figure out what you were referring to. It came up in map mode. I had to “view larger map” and then change the view to satellite. Possibly it’s a soda lake. But it doesn’t look like the right kind of terrain for that. Soda lakes are usually in semi-arid or arid country, and that one has lots of trees around it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/3 "2020-08-24T06:35:19Z")
The imbedded map, I see, is nothing like the [linked version](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7863144,-82.521052,18z/data=!3m1!1e3) (which is the exact same URL). For anyone reading, use this instead of what is in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/4 "2020-08-24T06:38:11Z")
Huh. The embedded version changes seasons as you zoom out, the linked version doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/5 "2020-08-24T06:42:05Z")
And in the zoomed-in embedded version, the big subdivision above the pond to the south I mentioned hasn’t been built yet. Zoom out a little, and there it is. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/6 "2020-08-24T06:48:27Z")
It looks to me that low water levels have exposed the rocky bed, and the rocks are coated in salt deposits. There are also salt deposits on the mud around the shoreline and up Hornbuckle Creek to the north. There’s a third similar pond to the north called Brackers Pond, I wonder about the similarity to the word “brackish”. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/7 "2020-08-24T07:03:34Z")
I don’t think these would have rocky beds. More likely clay. The area is made up of what is called [Appling](https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/A/APPLING.html) and [Cecil](https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/C/CECIL.html) soils. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/8 "2020-08-24T11:26:33Z")
Water shimmer. Usually a local breeze just chopping up the surface at the same time the sun angle is right. Wikipedia calls it [Sun glimmer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_glitter), which is silly, as the sun is not doing anything different. My favourite one is photographer David Moore’s [image of Sydney Harbour](http://davidmoorephotography.com.au/sydney-harbour/). ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/9 "2020-08-24T11:36:42Z")
Yeah, it looks like the picture was taken during strong winds. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/10 "2020-08-24T11:48:53Z")
That’s what I was going to say. Effectively the water surface is reflecting the Sun directly into the camera, which causes several adjacent pixels to get washed out. This is particularly noticeable at the northeast end of the lake, where several of the spots were bright enough to cause noticeable “streaks” in an east-west direction. I suspect (though I don’t know for sure, obviously) that these are because the photograph was taken with a particular type of digital camera called a “charged coupled device”, or CCD. When overexposed, the pixels tend to “bleed” in streaks along one particular axis. See [this article](https://hamamatsu.magnet.fsu.edu/articles/ccdsatandblooming.html) for the gory details. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/11 "2020-08-24T18:45:52Z")
IMO … That’s nothing but sun glint on a windy day. Happens all the time to the naked eye. It’s not (specifically) a CCD artifact although they can sure make it worse. It looks most natural to me at the zoom level where the distance “ruler” at lower right says “100 ft”. BUT … At the higher zoom levels you see all sorts of image-processing artifacts as Googles’ interpolation algorithm tried to make something out of what’s just noise. Natural real world noise, but noise nevertheless. ---
**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/12 "2020-08-24T19:12:19Z")
Brushy Creek? Looks like paintbrush strokes. Somebody’s messing with somebody. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/13 "2020-08-24T21:42:31Z")
You can see the same effect in other water features to the west. [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7457299,-82.9287854,7427m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-US) The patches of shimmer are inconsistent because adjacent areas are being photographed at different times of day, which makes for localized weirdness when the images are merged. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/14 "2020-08-24T21:54:33Z")
Nah, Lake Keowee looks like that because of all the kaiju from [the nuclear power plant](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7933874,-82.8986042,17z/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-US). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/15 "2020-08-24T22:59:23Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > The patches of shimmer are inconsistent because adjacent areas are being photographed at different times of day, which makes for localized weirdness when the images are merged. I used to live on a lake that was far enough north that it got icy & mostly frozen over in the winter. For a couple of years depending on the zoom level Google showed the lake as ice free, fully iced, or half iced. When the lake was iceless the trees had leaves. Not so when it was iced. Bing was even better. At any zoom half the lake was solid ice and the other half was the heavy brown silty color of spring thaw. I just checked and both are now consistent at all zooms. Looks like summer. Though Google still has better pix. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/16 "2020-08-24T23:44:49Z")
So you are saying that the service is half-iced? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2020, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/17 "2020-08-25T00:08:09Z")
> [@ThisIsTheEnd](#): > > Looks like paintbrush strokes. Somebody’s messing with somebody. Well, the space denier CTers are always saying outer space isn’t real and NASA images are all CGI. Somebody just got a little lazy, that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/18 "2020-08-25T01:16:53Z")
I agree. Something was agitating that water, and whitecaps can definitely make a body of water look different. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-likely-happening-in-this-google-maps-image/918862/19 "2020-08-26T00:57:51Z")
Two unrelated guesses: 1. Just reflected cloud cover plus wind plus image oversharpening? The [nearby reservoir](https://goo.gl/maps/rTpoAMV8Enn5B4PZ7) shows the same thing, and there are clear signs in the SW portion of overexposure and chromatic aberration… more points for the “optical phenomenon” theory. And the [swimming pool](https://goo.gl/maps/LCBEWpmdvDEwidcd7) nearby, which should be disconnected from natural water issues, also shows significant disturbance and reflectance. 2. Some sort of dumped construction aggregate, possibly from the nearby [Vulcan Materials Company](https://goo.gl/maps/CZ68ShoEn8tn6B1M6), who was [investigated for dumping](https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/troubled-water-officials-investigate-vulcan-materials-co/article_7dfadc51-979f-513c-87af-750ba422d507.html) the next state over, and was a Superfund site in California? Several of the nearby ponds have similar white stuff floating on them, and the childhood lake the OP talks about has some sort of erosion streaking into the lake where the white is. But I very much doubt this…