Google Earth Library

Under Placemark Collections Category in the GE Library Browser:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

World Wide Panorama

Collection of several 1,000 placemarks to Quicktime VR panoramic photographs that are linked via placemarks in Google Earth.  The photographs are sorted into various categories such as Gardens, Transportation, Water, etc.  Each image must be opened in a browser window for viewing.

Original Data and KML Content By:

The World Wide Panorma

Screenshots:

Under Geology Category in the GE Library Browser:  

California Groundwater Aquifers

Polygon overlay of groundwater aquifer locations in California. Based on data from the California Department of Water Resources.

Special Instructions

CTRL-Click on a colored area to see the name of the Aquifer and Sub-Basin. The file is about 5 megabytes so it might take a minute or two to load.

Original Data From:

California Department of Water Resources

KML Content Created By:

Matt Fox

Screenshots:

Under Aviation/Transportation Category in the GE Library Browser:  

Structurally Deficient Bridges

 This placemark collection contains data for approximately 70,000 bridges throughout the United States derived from the National Bridge Inventory Database 2006. The following fields were extracted from the database and are included for each placemark in the collection:

• State Code
• Route Number
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Year Built
• Kind of Material/Design
• Type of Design/Construction
• Condition of Deck
• Condition of Superstructure
• Condition of Substructure

This placemark collection only contains information on bridges with a status of "Structurally Deficient".  For a better understanding of the data, I suggest reading Coding Guide for the Structure Inventory and Appraisal of the Nations Bridges.

It’s a big file so give it a minute or two to load.

Google Earth KML File:

Bathymetric Map of Hawaiian Islands

Highly detailed bathymetric map overlay of the Hawaiian Islands. I masked out the actual islands so you don’t lose the aerial photography data in Google Earth.

Original Data By:

The Hawaii Coastal Geology Group

KML Content Created By:

Matt Fox

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

Zillow Labs Neighborhood Boundaries

Database of nearly 7,000 neighborhood boundaries in the largest cities of the US from my favorite real estate website.

Please DO NOT email me about errors or omissions in this data.  The dataset was created by Zillow.  If you want to learn more about how they created the data, check out their blog post on the subject.

Special Instructions

Simply download the KML file at the top of this post. Then select the state for which you’d like to view the neighborhood data. These are network links and will load the data when you select the state. Some (TX, CA, etc) will take longer to load than others. Texas is the largest, at around 8 megabytes.

Original Data From:

Zillow Labs

KML Content Created By:

Matt Fox (with the help of Shape2Earth).

Licensed under the Creative Commons License.

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

This collection contains approximately 900 15-minute historic USGS Topographic Maps covering almost the entire states of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.  Most of the maps are dated between 1890 and 1910.

There is a long history to these maps and how they ended up on my server and the role I played is but a very small one. My understanding of the story is that Christopher Marshall took a laptop and a scanner to various libraries and created the original scans, which consisted of 4 scans for the four corners of each map. JPGs from the original scans can be downloaded from http://historical.maptech.com/ and http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm. The next chapter to the story occurred a few years ago when Richard Utter took about 900 of the maps, stitched together the four pieces of each map and georeferenced them. Then finally, last week I received an email from Russell Nelson saying that he had all of Richard’s georeferenced maps on a couple DVDs and that he would be happy to send them to me. Now here we are a few days later and I have converted all of them to Google Earth SuperOverlays and uploaded them to my server. So I would like to personally thank Christopher, Richard and Russell for their contributions in making this possible.

This collection does not have all the topo maps that are available from the University of New Hampshire and Maptech websites. Richard appears to have scanned one revision of each 15′ map. Maybe someday I will find the time to add multiple revisions and the maps that are available in other scales. But that’s an enormous undertaking so probably won’t happen any time soon. Because there is only a single version of each map, I went ahead and removed the collars to create a seamless overlay for each state.

This collection has been added to my main Historical Topographic Map collection that has 1,000+ other historical topos. If you already have that Network Link in your Google Earth Places folder, then you should see the New England Maps appear automatically. If you don’t have it, simply download the KML file at the top of this post.  Choose a state, and then zoom down close enough for the maps to appear (the point where about 9 maps at a time will be within view). It may take a few seconds for the map tiles to load, especially when you first select PA or NY or have a slow Internet connection. An index is provided which shows the name and date of the map. If a map appears to be missing, see if it’s associated with the adjacent state. There are a few missing, especially in northern Maine.

KML Content Created By:

Matt Fox

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

Puget Sound Bathymetry

Very detailed bathymetric map of the southeastern part of the Puget Sound in Washington State.

For educational and personal use only.  Not to be used for real world navigation.

Original Data By:

Finlayson D.P. (2005) Combined bathymetry and topography of the Puget Lowland, Washington State. University of Washington,

http://www.ocean.washington.edu/data/pugetsound/

KML Content Created By:

Matt Fox

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

Description:

Collection of data related to Hurricane Katrina which struck the southeast US in August, 2005. Starting off with the following data set.

• SuperOverlay (0.75 meters/pixel) of the downtown New Orleans area from aerial photographs taken a couple weeks after Katrina struck the city. This overlay is a mosaic of images captured over a period of a couple weeks. They were not all taken on the same date. Created by Google Earth Library from NOAA images.
• Various images from MODIS Satellite which show Hurricane Katrina.
• **UPDATED 12/17** - Added unofficial Flood Risk Maps of New Orleans area from the Army Corp of Engineers.
• **UPDATED 12/20** - Added overlays of several 1,000 post-Hurricane Katrina images collected by NOAA and the Global Connection Project. 
• **UPDATED 12/20** - A collection of data submitted by users of the Google Earth BBS.  This was compiled by Google shortly after the hurricane and contains a wide variety of information.

I will try to add more data to this collection in the future.

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

Ordnance Survey Map Overlays for the UK

Gavin Brock has created an excellent overlay of the UK Ordnance Survey maps for the United Kingdom. The maps appear to be provided in several different detail levels which increase in detail as you zoom in.

Original KML Content By:

Gavin Brock’s Google Earth Hacks

Original Data From:

UK Ordnance Survey

Screenshots:

Google Earth KML File:

Google Earth BBS Discussion:

Description: Several new additions have been made to the MODIS Rapid Response System Gallery that I put together a few weeks ago. This collection of overlays now includes imagery from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua and Terra satellites and also the AVHRR sensor on the NOAA-15 satellite. This collection now includes the following overlays:

• The MODIS Rapid Response System Gallery contains imagery that is hand picked from the MODIS Rapid Response Team to show major events that are visible from space that day. Dust storms, hurricanes, tropical storms and wildfires are just some of the events you’ll see in this collection. The images are sorted based on the day of the year in which they were captured. Click on the name of the image under the Places folder in Google Earth to see some general information regarding the image, including a brief description of what is being shown. The collection includes over 1,000 images dating back to 2003. All of the images in the Gallery have not been included in the Google Earth collection for various reasons.

• The OnEarth WMS Layers by JPL collection contains numerous layers derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra and Aqua satellites. Several of these are updated daily with current satellite imagery.

• The SSEC Near Realtime MODIS and AVHRR collection contains near real-time MODIS and AVHRR real time data provided by the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The MODIS imagery only covers the United States, but is available about 1 hour after the satellite overpass. The AVHRR images are available about 1-4 hours after the satellite overpass. Network links which automatically update every day are included for the MODIS imagery. You must manually download a KML file for the daily update of AVHRR imagery.

Screenshots: