In Australia, Google Earth seems to have spurred the popular imagination quite successfully. Perhaps that’s because on a per capita basis the country has by far the most high-resolution imagery to gawk over. (Canada has more surface area, but comparatively less of it is in high-res. I’m willing to stand corrected, however, if another country wants to claim this crown.)
We’ve already had one story this year about an Australian finding and then confirming a meteorite crater using Google Earth. Now Australia’s The Age newspaper is going for seconds, reporting on a retired geologist who thinks he’s found a crater as well, in northwest New South Wales.
If newspapers wonder why they’re dinosaurs on the way to extinction, this article should answer it. The online version is screaming for an embedded Google Map showing you the candidate crater in question, but of course no such tool is made available, letting us blogs run away with the bone:
Another problem is that the article is premature. The feature hasn’t been verified as a meteorite crater, and frankly, to me it looks more like a round ridge of hills. There are plenty of hilly ridges around — some of them will curve. Pre-announcing crater finds is a recipe for egg on face.
Funny how that meteorite if that’s what it was conveniently carved the words “(C) 2006 Google Inc.” across the middle of the crater it made. I wonder how many others do that.
Does Google own the rights to other meteorite craters? This may explain the reason for the lack of newspaper take-up of Google Maps embedded tools. By Google’s own Ts & Cs, if you do this they pretty much own you. Or at least, rights to do what they want with your article.
In a worst-case scenario (if you choose to read the T&Cs that way) Google has the right to use the content you put inside the map via the API — and certainly not to the article around it. If your map merely shows a view of a place (like I do here) then there’s no worries, mate.