Out of Brazil, a remarkable story, as reported by Treehugger blog: The deforestation of the Amazon has provided one unforeseen boon to archaeologists — the denuded ground has laid bare some amazing pre-Columbian geoglyphs, visible from the air, and thus on Google Earth:

One of the factors that contributed to so many geoglyphs being undetected prior to the aid of satallites is their enormous size. According to leading geoglyph scientist Alceu Ranzi, his latest discoveries — five sets of geometric shapes, with circles, squares and lines — can measure more than a mile from one extreme to another.

Treehugger doesn’t provide locations of examples of these geoglyphs, but Globo Amazonia does. For the sake of convenience, here they are on Google Maps — click here to see them on Google Earth.

View Amazon geoglyphs in a larger map

Australia’s The Age reports on a crater discovery with a twist. Astronomer Duane Hamacher used Google Earth to hunt for a meteorite crater in Finke National Park after learning about Aboriginal traditional stories that referred to a possible meteor impact in the area. He promptly found a candidate, which has now been confirmed as an impact crater.

The Age doesn’t pinpoint the location of the crater. Luckily, this blog post by Universe Today has a Google Maps screen grab of the crater, and from this the location is easily surmised. Here it is in Google Maps — Click here to get a link to Google Earth:

View Palm Valley Crater in a larger map