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Archive for October 13th, 2014



The Napa earthquake in satellite imagery

by Timothy Whitehead on Oct.13, 2014, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA

We recently came across this map in the Maps Gallery which alerted us to the the fact that Google Earth (and Maps) has imagery taken soon after the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck Napa Valley, California in August. To find out when and where the earthquake took place, we can use the ‘Earthquake’ layer in Google Earth (found in the ‘Gallery’ layer). According to the marker on that layer, provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS), the Earthquake took place at 10:20:44 UTC on August 24, 2014, which was 3:20 a.m. local time. The latest imagery in the region is dated August 24, 2014, and judging from the shadows, was taken in the early afternoon. The whole area has the new 3D imagery, which is created with aerial photography captured before the earthquake, so to see the imagery from 24th August, turn off the 3D buildings layer. You will also not see the imagery in Google Maps, because it also shows the 3D imagery and has no way to turn it off or view historical imagery.

Although hundreds of buildings were damaged, very few collapsed, so in most cases the damage is not visible in the satellite imagery.

The map we referred to above highlights one of the buildings that partially collapsed during the quake, as seen in this news article.

Earthquake damaged building
An earthquake damaged building showing debris in the road and a crowd of onlookers.

Fire damage in mobile home park
Four homes burnt down in fire in mobile home park. See this news article.

Collapsed carport roofs
Collapsed car port roofs. See news article here.

Water on road
Water on road from ruptured water pipes.

Download this KML file to view the locations in Google Earth.

For our many other posts about earthquakes and the tools in Google Earth relating to earthquakes you can go here.

The post The Napa earthquake in satellite imagery appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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