The Japanese Tsunami created some massive icebergs
by Google Earth Blog on Aug.10, 2011, 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
When the earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) struck Japan earlier this year, we provided as much data as possible about the disaster. What many people didn't realize was that the tsunami continued to travel across the ocean, eventually striking Antarctica with a great deal of force. This caused some flexing and breaking of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf, which resulted in two large icebergs being released, reminicient of the chunk of the Wilkins Ice Shelf that broke off a few years ago. Combined, the icebergs cover an area of 125 square kilometers, or more than twice the size of New York's Manhattan Island!
You can find the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Google Earth using this KML file
, though I was unable to overlay the high-res images from NASA due to the poor imagery quality in that area of Google Earth. If you're able to align it properly, send us your file and we'll update this post.
NASA has also put together a brief video showing how all of this occurred:
[UPDATE: User 'McMaster_de" was able to put together the image overlay, and it looks great!]
You can download the KMZ file here.
If you turn on the "Borders and Labels" layer in Google Earth, you'll see the yellow outlines match up quite well with the dark patches in the overlay, as seen here:
Great work, McMaster_de!