This post is brought to us by Peter Mello of Sea-fever.org (via NOAA), in two seperate installments. The first post a map of Ocean Energy Distribution Map from Chile Earthquake Tsunami (shown above). Peter writes:
8.2-foot tsunami wave expected to strike Hilo, Hawaii 11:05 a.m. local time (4:05 p.m. ET) according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Tsunami advisory extended to Oregon, Washington, parts of Alaska, coastal British Colombia by West Coast Alaska Tsunami Warning Center
Here at gCaptain, we are a big fan of maps and when you came across this one, we couldn’t help but to post here on the blog.
The above map, created by researchers at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World Bank, plots the remotest places on Earth (shown in darker shades of red).
The maps are based on a model which calculated how long it would take to travel to the nearest city of 50,000 or more people by land or water. The model combines information on terrain and access to road, rail and river networks. It also considers how factors such as altitude, steepness of terrain and hold-ups like border crossings slow travel.
While the map is pretty typical to what one would expect, there are some unexpected surprises.
In the Amazon, for example, extensive river networks and an increasing number of roads mean that only 20 per cent of the land is more than two days from a city – around the same proportion as Canada’s Quebec province.
You can read the full article at NewScientist.com and be sure to let us know what struck you in the comments section. Of course, click on the map above for a larger image.
While this is a rather old story, it just came to our attention through one of our many vast searches on the internet. This photo of a cruise ship shaped hotel in the southern port city of Busan, South Korea. The cruise ship capsized against the dock in Typhoon Maemi in September of 2003. USAToday.com has the full story of the typhoon HERE, but the interesting thing is that capsized ship can still be seen on Google Maps.
This was brought to our attention by digg.com, the social networking site that allows its users to submit links and news stories and then list the stories by how many times they were voted on or “dugg”. The particular link was “dugg” 4300 times, making it one of the top links in the last two weeks.
The map is provided by atlantic-cable.com – History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network.
The Exploratorium brings us live earthquake monitor and mapping links! Normally I wouldn’t cut an paste so much info but in light of messages I’ve received from mariners worried about their families, here it is:
Southern California Integrated GPS Network Mapsurfer
Mapsurferer is an interactive mapping system that allows visitors to overlay different layers of information on a map of California. These layers include seismic stations, highways, geological features, major faults, and more. While information about the Bay Area and northern California is available, this map focuses on southern parts of the state.
Quakes in the last 7 days: USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
The USGS has many maps of live earthquake data. This section lets visitors see quakes that have occurred anywhere in the world in the last week. You can also focus on geographic regions. Zooming in to a specific quake, you reach a page with specific data and links to the area’s seimic and quake damage history
Shake map of California and Nevada showing fault lines
These maps are nice illustrations of the fact that earthquakes occur along faults. You can click the small boxes to zoom in and get more details on specific quakes
Did you feel it?
Seismometers can measure shaking, but how much does that reflect what people actually feel? On this site, people in the area of a quake can report their experiences to the USGS, and the results are made into a map. This can be compared with other shake maps for the same quake that were generated from seismometer data.
IRIS Seismic Monitor
IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) has developed their Seismic Monitor that offers data about quake in near realtime, lets you search the Web for information about them, and view seismograms.
Real-time seismograms
Recorded by stations in the Northern California Seismic Network, these seismograms update every 5 minutes. The site also includes information on interpreting seismograms and examples of different magnitudes.
USGS Global Positioning System (GPS) monitors
USGS keeps many live earthquake monitoring stations that track movements of the earth’s plates using GPS. Because plate movement is fairly slow, the data are recorded over long periods of time. So the information on this site records events in the last year, or last decade, rather than the last week.
Interested in the latest marine casualty reports? Lloyds MIU, the world’s only casualty reporting service, has a new map that plots ship incidents as they happen. The site also lists casualties in chronological order for a quick heads up display of events. Click HERE to view the map.
Pirate maps have long been the a source of intrigue but modern day treasure hunters more often use advance technology like remote operated vehicles and sonar systems than maps stamped with an X. Neverless, pirate maps have survived to modern day and are equally intriguing as those found in archives… but they have a different purpose. Here are a few modern day pirate maps but remember dead men tell no tales and there is no gold to be found on these maps… well unless your in blackwater.
LIVE PIRACY MAP – 2008
This map shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the Piracy Reporting Centre during 2008. This division of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) works to protect the integrity of international trade by seeking out fraud and malpractice. The organization combines traditional reporting tools like a piracy hotline with a wide variety of IT sources to keep member informed of dangerous situation in real time.
This map by UNOSAT, the UN Institute for Training and Research’s (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme, illustrates reported incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Aden from January to 30 September 2008. Satellite imagery has been used in this analysis for the identification of suspected hijacked vessel locations and UNOSAT has combined this imagery with public media reports. The result is the map above which highlights the most troublesome incidents with an intensity color scale. You can find the hi resolution version of the map HERE.
These are projection maps of flooding from Hurricane Ike released by the Texas Governor’s Office. The National Hurricane Center is predicting Hurricane Ike to reach the coast sometime late Friday or early Saturday with a storm surge of up to 20 feet. Ike is currently a Category 2 hurricane but could reach Category 3 status by landfall.
This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Notice that most land has an antipode in the ocean. This map uses the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.
This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Notice that most land has an antipode in the ocean. This map uses the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.
This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Darker shades indicate areas of higher population density. This map uses the Equirectangular projection.
As a kid I wondered where I’d end up if I could drill a hole all the way through the earth. The answer was always China. That was before I knew the concept of Latitude and Longitude.
Thanks to the net, it’s much easier to make the calculation today. It is interesting to note that very little of the earths land mass overlaps.
Any number of Anitpode map links can make the calculation for you.
Wikipedia info here. You can create your own.
For the hooked on trivia buffs, here’s Wendy Carols’ Map Page.
(Ed. note: If you’re of my vintage you may remember Wendy’s (aka Walter) 1968 synthesizer classic Hooked on Bach.
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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the 
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