How much do you use Google Earth?

[darthoblio]

For the last couple years I've been in a part of California that is pretty homogeneous in Google Earth: the north-central part of the Big Valley, the one that can be seen from space. But I used to live in San Diego County, and in that hilly country, which is fairly littered with artifacts from the 19th and 20th centuries going back for literally thousands and thousands of years, I've found GE to be a fascinating tool.

I learned that the deserts east of the city of San Diego have lines similar in some ways to the lines of Nazca: they go nowhere, but extend arrow-straight for miles. I've pinpointed the location of old stage and rail stops. I've been able to establish alignments between standing stones that I believe are not accidental. I've located old cabins, mining camps, and even abandoned drive-in movie theatres and trailer parks (cha-ching!)

So I wonder how many of you use GE as a research tool? Do you find it useful in your particular area? I find it's useless to me locally here in the valley, whereas down south it was one of my best tools. What do you like (or not like) about GE?

Here are some SoCal screenshots from Google Earth. I've left the latitude & longitude markers in so y'all can look for yourselves. The round black dots, by the way, are creosote bushes.


Glyphs like these appear all over the desert. It's easy to interpret them as the marks left by dune buggies, but they're single lines, not tire marks. Also, they don't even connect with each other or the nearest road. There could be a very ordinary explanation, but it hasn't occurred to me, yet.


These lines are not near any paved road. The road that runs N to S on the left side is nothing but a dirt track that runs for miles. The one that crosses E to W below center you would probably never notice, hiking past. This is out in the middle of nowhere.

And just east of that location:



Nothing visible here above ground.

So, how has GE helped you?

 

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[jeff of pa]

I use GE in Conjunction with other arials from 1937 up.

Your lines appear to be Tire tracks

These Arials are from , Sept. 17,18 or 19, 2012.
(bad part leaves still on trees)
between 11AM & 4PM can't narrow any closer.
unless someone can give me events that happened outside only one of those days that week between those hours (detecting a particular spot/mowing Grass/waving at the Sattelite)
to Confirm or Disprove each day.
Sorry I can't supply the Link, I am not sure if this is Public or not
Since some seems to Zoom alot closer







Scrap yard ? Military ?

 

[darthoblio]

Your lines appear to be Tire tracks

Look closer.

 

[Yeasty]

This is how I use GE.
The tracks are from the embedded GPS in my CTX3030

 

[darthoblio]

Interesting, Yeasty! I wouldn't have thought of that.

 

[darthoblio]

Scrap yard ? Military ?

View attachment 791154View attachment 791155

Jeff you've solved the mystery, one that I've spent too much time wondering over because I didn't see the trees because of the forest. The "lost city" has exactly the same footprint as the scrap yard (possibly military) off to the east. It's an example of ghost images that pop up in Google Earth. Using the timeline feature I realized that 12-31-2005 is the only image that shows anything at all in that spot. I simply never zoomed out and compared the outline of the two sites. Thanks for pointing it out before I drove out there and started digging!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Out here in the Arizona desert I use G.E. to hunt down gold prospecting areas as well as to check out how rough an area is before I head out to it.

Before I moved out here I was using G.E. to preview properties and the areas they were in. I'd look up a property on a realtors web site then plug the address into G.E. and be able to see a lot of what the postings were NOT showing.

 

[gldnbrew]

This is how I use GE.
The tracks are from the embedded GPS in my CTX3030

View attachment 794202

Great thread Yeasty, I wouldn't have thought of that either. I m going to try that next time I am up in the woods MD'ing. I have been researching a local battle for two years now and if had given this a thought, I could of seen the areas that I missed, with out trying to remember them. I am going to try this with my Garmin 76Cx in track mode(since a CTX3030 is out of my league, for now anyway). I have a 1 Gig card in it, does anyone know how long that it will record a track.

Paul

 

[Potts]

Another site called Flash Earth is worth looking at, I think it's a little clearer than GE, the Latitude and Longitudes can be used for points of interest and added to the GPS. this site doesn't use Map overlays like GE does but I like using it....... Flash Earth - Zoom into satellite and aerial imagery of the Earth in Flash

 

[Rob in KS]

Even my cheap E Trex will store tracks. I use Easy GPS to download both tracks and waypoints. Then I save them as GPX files.
That way I can import to GE or back to my GPS. I keep projects in separate files.

I also use the overlay feature, it's really handy

 

[gldnbrew]

Even my cheap E Trex will store tracks. I use Easy GPS to download both tracks and waypoints. Then I save them as GPX files.
That way I can import to GE or back to my GPS. I keep projects in separate files.

I also use the overlay feature, it's really handy

I tried the tracks on my 76Cx and it worked great. I downloaded to MapSource then I use the view in GE option and it plots it in GE. I wish it were a thinner line, maybe later on, I can play around with it and see if there is away to get a thin line. I did find where I can change the color for different tracts. This will help in finding areas that I have missed.

 

[Bum Luck]

Look closer.

They look like tire tracks.

 

[Talon]

I use a combination of Google Earth, Google Maps, Historic Aerials and historic platte maps of the region to find new hunting sites. I'm currently tracking down schools and other historic sites and storing the info for later use. Since there is so much snow on the ground it keeps me busy waiting for the thaw.