After an excellent read on virtual globes in the current issue of Nature, I chanced upon some very interesting comments appended to Declan’s blog post. One of them points to GeoMapApp, a cross-platform Java geobrowser linked to reams of detailed seafloor height data, but also historical seismicity, and more.

What’s immensely useful is that any view at any resolution is exportable as a KMZ layer ready for opening in Google Earth, letting you see far more detailed bathymetry data than Google Earth currently displays by default.

Google Earth CTO Michael Jones has hinted that 3D ocean mapping is on a to-do list of possible future enhancements, so consider this to be a (2D) sneak preview of things to come. But GeoMapApp is an impressive application in its own right, especially if you look at some of the focus areas and the analytical tools you get play with there.