Christchurch Earthquake Google Maps

Christchurch 22 Feb 2011 Earthquake

This Google Map uses the Ushahidi map reporting system to record the latest news from Christchurch. The map shows closed roads, open hospitals, recovery centres and hazard zones.

Anyone can post a report to the map by sending an email to eqnzfeb@gmail.com, by sending a tweet with the hashtags '#christchurch', '#eqnz' or '#ChristchurchQuake' or by completing a short form.

Christchurch Quake Map

The Christchurch Quake Map allows you to play time-lapse visualisations of the 4,870 quakes and aftershocks that have struck in the Christchurch area since September 2010. It is also possible to view visualisations of the last seven days of quakes or the 47 that have hit today. The Google Maps plot earthquake data from GeoNet.

The animations show the epicentre of each shock and are colour-coded to show the depth of each quake and scaled to reflect the quake's strength.

Google Person Finder - Christchurch
Google have released a person finder application for today's Christchurch earthquake. Using the application it is possible to search for information or add information for someone who may have been affected by the earthquake.

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Marine Charts on Google Maps

Marine GeoGarage

GeoGarage Marine, the portal to international marine maps, has added 227 marine charts for the Netherlands.

GeoGarage uses Google Maps to display marine charts from around the world. The site currently provides marine chart overlays from NOAA (US), DHN (Brazil) and Linz (New Zealand). Marine GeoGarage's web interface also gives subscription members access to all private charts from the UKHO (UK), CHS (Canada), SHN (Argentina).

GeoGarage Marine is not only a seamless chart viewer, overlaying charts at different scales on aerial and satellite imagery from Google Maps, but also allows the user to plot waypoints and to prepare navigation routes. These can be saved and uploaded to GPS (in gpx format or directly to Garmin GPS via its Communicator web plugin).

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Save the Pacific with this Google Map Game

Crazy Boat: The Curse of the Trash Vortex

The Pacific Trash Vortex has reached critical mass, flooding nearby seas with strange and valuable debris. A new age of sea entrepreneurship has arisen. Can you man your rusty old boat and save the Pacific Ocean from the floating debris of the Trash Vortex ...?

I've been waiting a while for someone to come up with an interesting use of the Google Static Maps API Styled Maps feature. It was definitely worth the wait. This Facebook game makes great use of the Google Static Maps Styled Maps feature and HTML overlays with real latitudes/longitudes to create a realistic backdrop for your challenge to clear the Pacific Ocean of the Trash Vortex.

Echo Team has called upon some of the greatest mid-century American action serials to make a game that both harkens back to the adventures of yore and puts a new face on the idea of exploration, with an emphasis on the environmental impact of what reckless exploration means to the planet at large.

Crazy Boat uses your Facebook profile data to give you in-game bonuses for your real-world skills and strengths. If you you post messages about the game to your Facebook wall, you might earn the Forest Ranger skill, and if you post about current events, you might score points as a Politician.

5% of the in-game revenues go to benefit Project Kaisei, a non-profit organisation dedicated to cleaning up the real Pacific Trash Vortex.

So, are you up for the challenge?

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Track Your Canadian MP on Google Maps

RepresentMe

If you live in Ottawa, Canada then RepresentMe can help you find out who your elected representative is and what they've done lately.

When you enter your postcode RepresentMe will display your electoral ward on a Google Map and tell you who your Member of Parliament, Member of Provincial Parliament and City Councillor are.

RepresentMe also displays the recent activity of your elected representatives, including their recent voting record and mentions in press articles.

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A Google Map Warning of Rain

Rain Alarm

This Google Map based application will send you a warning when rain is approaching.

Rain Alarm displays an animation of current precipitation and can warn you against approaching rain or snow. The app checks a perimeter of 75 km around your selected location every 30 minutes. If rain is approaching your location the map will then sound the alarm.

The app is currently available for the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain including the Balearic and the Canary Islands.

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Town Namesakes on Google Maps

NSW Suburbs: What's in a name?

Did you know that 227 towns in New South Wales are named after UK towns? Well this double Google Map shows you all 227 NSW towns and shows you the location of their namesake in the UK.

The towns are displayed on both Google Maps and listed in the map sidebar. If you click on a town name in the sidebar both the New South Wales and UK map will centre on the chosen town.

If you want to produce a similar map for the namesakes of US towns you can view the code for the map at github. Alternatively you could create a dual map showing the cities/towns other cities/towns were twinned with.

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Synched Rally Videos with Google Maps

Rally-Maps

Rally-Maps, the rally web portal, uses Google Maps to show the locations of rallies all over the world and allows users to place their rally videos on an on-line map.

The site has recently released a number of new features. One of these new features is the synchronisation of rally videos with Google Maps. This example lets you view a video of the 2011 Sigdalsrally, with Kjær Motorsport's Subaru Impreza group N rally car.

As the video plays the car's position is shown on the Google Map. The video is truly synchronised with the map, if you pause the video the car's movement on the map will pause and if you select a different time in the video the map will also update automatically.

If you love motor sports you should also check out these other great Google Maps features on Rally-Maps:

• Rally map, showing the locations of the world's rallies: click
• 3D Tours: click
• Localized videos: click
• Street View support: click
• Elevation profile for special stages with mouse over effect: click

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