Google "Atlantis'in Sırrını Açıkladı — Google Explains Watery Mystery of Atlantis

Google Explains Watery Mystery of 'Atlantis' - Google "Atlantis'in Sırrını Açıkladı

By Jenna Wortham

The bizarre tuhaf markings spotted using Google Earth's new underwater search tool last week unleashed serbest bırakmak a tsunami of theories and speculation across the Web about the origins of the gridlike ızgara benzeri pattern.

The most popular theory was that the markings were signs of the lost city of Atlantis. But Bits readers also wondered if the maze of lines could be anything from the mystical island featured on the television show "Lost' to an underwater lair inhabited yaşamak (içinde) by former Vice President *** Cheney.

According to Google, it's time to shelve rafa kaldırmak those tinfoil folyo hats.

In an interview, Steve Miller, product manager for Ocean in Google Earth, firmly debunked gerçeği göstermek rumors that the crisscross çaprazlama çizgili markings were anything other than artificial yapay data remnants kalıntı left by sonar-equipped boats collecting data from the ocean floor.

While sound waves are considered to be more effective than satellites for mapping strips of the ocean floor, they're often more expensive and time-consuming to use. "The boats have to go slowly. Otherwise, they make a lot of noise and can wash out the readings,' said Mr. Miller. As a result, boats are used less frequently, leaving fewer gridlike sonar deniz radarı patterns visible on Google Earth's map of the ocean.

For the patch of ocean that drew so much attention last week, there was a discrepancy çelişki in the readings collected from satellites and the higher-resolution echo sounding yankı ile derinliği saptamak data collected by boats at water level. That caused exaggerated abartılı traces to show up on the map. Typically, when data collected by satellites and sonar surveys are blended, the result is much smoother, Mr. Miller said. But here, the "batches of imagery didn't overlap properly.'

Mr. Miller compared it to the blurry stripes that are occasionally visible in Google Earth's land maps. "Those patches are from cameras and instruments using different resolutions,' he said. Over time, those uneven engebeli patches smooth out as Google puts more images and data into the system.

As for gelince the speculation that the markings off the western coast of Africa were located near one of the possible sites of the fabled (mit.); yalan. sunken batık city of Atlantis, Mr. Miller said it was a coincidence tesadüf. "To my knowledge, the researchers weren't looking for Atlantis. They conducted yönetmek this survey many years ago.' They very likely sent out a boat to comb taramak for additional readings in this particular area, he said.

Mr. Miller also highlighted dikkat çekmek, öne çıkarmak several other findings in Google Earth's new Ocean feature, including a newly formed volcanic island close to Hawaii and an underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean where two tectonic plate tektonik levha are visibly shifting away from one another.

Was the whole "Atlantis'uproar kargaşa a well orchestrated iyi düzenlenmiş, publicity stunt marifet for Google's new ocean maps, which were introduced earlier this month?

Mr. Miller said no. But the reports certainly drew a lot of armchair explorers eager to view the waterlogged su dolu pattern. Searches for "Google ocean' and "Atlantis Google ocean'spiked aniden yükselmek over the last several days.