Google Earth application has been used, in various degrees, by researcher community around the world, particularly geologist. No wonder that the application keep updated time-by-time. Google earth’s newest version, a new report says, is now with more accurate ocean imagery in several key areas—using data collected by research cruises over the past three years. Its newest version, this week, is reflecting new bathymetry data.

Multibeam bathymetry synthesis for the main Hawaiian Islands. Image Source/Credit: School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Google, a press release by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography says, updated ocean data in its Google Earth application this week, reflecting new bathymetry data assembled by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, NOAA researchers and many other ocean mapping groups from around the world.

According to the release, Google Earth’s newest version is now includes:

“All of the multibeam bathymetry data collected by U.S. research vessels over the past three decades including 287 Scripps expeditions from research vessels Washington, Melville and Revelle. UCSD undergraduate student Alexis Shakas processed all the U.S. multibeam data and then worked with Google researchers on the global integration.”

AS cited on the release, David Sandwell (a Scripps geophysicist) explains:

“The original version of Google Ocean was a newly developed prototype map that had high resolution but also contained thousands of blunders related to the original archived ship data. UCSD undergraduate students spent the past three years identifying and correcting the blunders as well as adding all the multibeam echosounder data archived at the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The Google map now matches the map used in the research community, which makes the Google Earth program much more useful as a tool for planning cruises to uncharted areas.”

Through several rounds of upgrades, the release reveals:

“Google Earth now has 15 percent of the seafloor image derived from shipboard soundings at 1-kilometer resolution. Previous versions only derived about 10 percent of their data from ship soundings and the rest from depths predicted by Sandwell and NOAA researcher Walter Smith using satellite gravity measurements. The two developed the prediction technique in 1994. The satellite and sounding data are combined with land topography from the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) to create a global topography and bathymetry grid called SRTM30_PLUS.”

The next major upgrade to the grid will occur later this year using a new gravity model having twice the accuracy of previous models. The new gravity information is being collected by a European Space Agency satellite called CryoSat that was launched in February 2010, the release says. (via: “Google Earth Ocean Terrain Receives Major Update” by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)