Duke Scientist Joins Gore, Google In Unveiling Ocean Resource
New layer highlights ocean resources, species and threats.
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Duke University researcher who’s one of the world’s top experts on using geospatial technology to map oceans and marine life played a key role in developing content for the new virtual mapping software, Ocean in Google Earth.
Pat Halpin, director of the Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, joined Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and a host of environmental news makers including former Vice President Al Gore, at the launch of the new software Monday at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
Ocean in Google Earth, online at http://earth.google.com/ocean, uses images obtained from satellite imagery, undersea photography and global information system 3-D technology to enable users to “dive” beneath the surface of the sea and explore the ecosystems, species and geologic features found there.
“There’s an old expression: Out of sight, out of mind," Halpin says. "We don’t want that to happen to these amazing animals and places. By sharing these journeys through Ocean in Google Earth, we hope to provide a resource for scientists and students worldwide, and increase public awareness and appreciation of the need to explore and protect the world beneath the ocean’s waves."
The virtual journeys in the Census of Marine Life layer of Ocean in Google Earth give users glimpses of new life forms from some of the most remote and little-explored places on the planet, along with stories of the scientists who discovered them, Halpin says. Halpin served on Google’s advisory council as a representative of the Census of Marine Life, a network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.
Navigating the Census content in Ocean in Google Earth, users come face to face with a collection of bizarre undersea creatures, including 50 species of Arctic jellyfish, a colossal sea star and Antarctica’s biggest amphipod. They can follow along as scientists explore sites such as the hottest hydrothermal vent ever discovered or a new ocean environment created by an ice shelf break the size of the island of Jamaica.
For the past year, Halpin oversaw the incorporation of images, geospatial data, maps, videos and narratives from Census explorations into 129 “virtual expeditions” accessible to the public through Ocean in Google Earth.
"This is just the beginning of what should be an expanding amount of content loaded onto Ocean in Google Earth from our group,” he adds.
Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab staff members Ei Fujioka and Ben Donnelly worked with Halpin to prepare the content for Google. They were assisted by Census of Marine Life staff members Sara Hickox, Darlene Crist and Jay Harding of the University of Rhode Island.
