Okay, there's a lot of conflicting info here, let me lay it out. (I'm an oceanographer.)
We have two ways of measuring the shape of the seafloor:
A) Satellites that detect subtle changes in the gravitational pull when they fly over a submarine mountain or valley, and/or changes in the height of the sea surface caused by gravitational pull of the seafloor. These give global coverage, but at low resolution.
B) Ships with bottom-mapping sonar. These give a detailed picture, but only along the tracks where the ship sailed. It's too expensive to map the whole ocean this way.
Google Earth seafloor maps are the low-res satellite data, overlaid with the high-res ship data where it exists. The straight lines you're seeing are the ship tracks: if you zoom in on them you can see the high-res seafloor details there while the rest of the ocean looks smooth (but isn't).
86GTS said
05:49 AM Apr 10, 2022
TheHeaths said
08:51 AM Apr 10, 2022
Very interesting Dorian.
Thanks for posting that info/explanation.
Brodie Allen said
02:11 PM Apr 10, 2022
Good explanation, dorian.
However, the "tracks" look to be over 100k's wide, and what sonar has
the power to cause such aggravation to the sea floor - I have a bit of experience
with sonar as fish and bottom structure locators having been the distribution
thru Hawker Pacific for the Lowrance electronic systems thru all of Northern
NSW.
The power required to see a 1oz sinker 100 meters below the boat is minimal -
certainly wouldn't carve the seafloor anything like these tracks.
And I reckon that if a survey was being carried out the sweeps would follow
a coherent grid pattern, one would assume.
I have other ideas - let's see what others might be able to add.
On the face of it, very mysterious.
dorian said
02:50 PM Apr 10, 2022
Brodie Allen wrote:
However, the "tracks" look to be over 100k's wide, and what sonar has the power to cause such aggravation to the sea floor ...
The line-of-sight distance between Melbourne and Geelong is 65km. The track width is only a fraction of that.
There is no "aggravation" on the sea floor. This is an artefact of the much higher resolution of sonar scans. Satellite scans are relatively smooth because they have a much lower resolution.
The extra lines can be examined with a Google Earth plug-in, Columbia Ocean Terrain Synthesis.
Viewers can use the ground level view feature of Google Earth to take them to the seafloor for a closer look at the terrain. To find which areas offer greater detail, users can download a plug-in, the Columbia Ocean Terrain Synthesis. This provides an extra layer to the conventional Google Earth imagery, showing the tracks of research cruises that have produced the higher resolution. (For those who really want to dive in, there is information on the cruises themselves, and even the original bathymetry data.)
-- Edited by dorian on Sunday 10th of April 2022 03:09:37 PM
Okay, there's a lot of conflicting info here, let me lay it out. (I'm an oceanographer.)
We have two ways of measuring the shape of the seafloor:
A) Satellites that detect subtle changes in the gravitational pull when they fly over a submarine mountain or valley, and/or changes in the height of the sea surface caused by gravitational pull of the seafloor. These give global coverage, but at low resolution.
B) Ships with bottom-mapping sonar. These give a detailed picture, but only along the tracks where the ship sailed. It's too expensive to map the whole ocean this way.
Google Earth seafloor maps are the low-res satellite data, overlaid with the high-res ship data where it exists. The straight lines you're seeing are the ship tracks: if you zoom in on them you can see the high-res seafloor details there while the rest of the ocean looks smooth (but isn't).
Thx Dorian. Very interesting.
I'll put my tin hat back in the draw now. Lol
Corndoggy said
05:22 PM Apr 10, 2022
I can also see a small slight imprint on the ocean floor map. Think I make it out to be "2022 Google". I'm sure aliens put that there too. They even knew the year we would find it.
-- Edited by Corndoggy on Sunday 10th of April 2022 05:22:31 PM
-- Edited by Corndoggy on Sunday 10th of April 2022 07:06:07 PM
Brodie Allen said
07:45 AM Apr 11, 2022
I asked an associate involved with a huge oil company and living in Canada what he thought of the lines.
He was quite sure that it was the result of high intensity under-sea-floor resources search explorations.
He could not account for the seeming random search patterns and why the information has been uploaded
to Google.
If anyone would have known all about the lines it would be he, has spent all his life at university and
with the oil company.
To me still remains somewhat of a mystery. Would like to know more.
They must have big tractors!!
Google maps mmm,,,,
If you look closely you can spot a few popular free camping areas.
Here is an explanation by an oceanographer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/9oieuv/what_are_these_lines_in_the_ocean_and_why_do_they/
Okay, there's a lot of conflicting info here, let me lay it out. (I'm an oceanographer.)
We have two ways of measuring the shape of the seafloor:
A) Satellites that detect subtle changes in the gravitational pull when they fly over a submarine mountain or valley, and/or changes in the height of the sea surface caused by gravitational pull of the seafloor. These give global coverage, but at low resolution.
B) Ships with bottom-mapping sonar. These give a detailed picture, but only along the tracks where the ship sailed. It's too expensive to map the whole ocean this way.
Google Earth seafloor maps are the low-res satellite data, overlaid with the high-res ship data where it exists. The straight lines you're seeing are the ship tracks: if you zoom in on them you can see the high-res seafloor details there while the rest of the ocean looks smooth (but isn't).
Thanks for posting that info/explanation.
However, the "tracks" look to be over 100k's wide, and what sonar has
the power to cause such aggravation to the sea floor - I have a bit of experience
with sonar as fish and bottom structure locators having been the distribution
thru Hawker Pacific for the Lowrance electronic systems thru all of Northern
NSW.
The power required to see a 1oz sinker 100 meters below the boat is minimal -
certainly wouldn't carve the seafloor anything like these tracks.
And I reckon that if a survey was being carried out the sweeps would follow
a coherent grid pattern, one would assume.
I have other ideas - let's see what others might be able to add.
On the face of it, very mysterious.
The line-of-sight distance between Melbourne and Geelong is 65km. The track width is only a fraction of that.
There is no "aggravation" on the sea floor. This is an artefact of the much higher resolution of sonar scans. Satellite scans are relatively smooth because they have a much lower resolution.
The extra lines can be examined with a Google Earth plug-in, Columbia Ocean Terrain Synthesis.
https://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2814
https://earthsky.org/earth/google-ocean-maps-dive-deep/
Viewers can use the ground level view feature of Google Earth to take them to the seafloor for a closer look at the terrain. To find which areas offer greater detail, users can download a plug-in, the Columbia Ocean Terrain Synthesis. This provides an extra layer to the conventional Google Earth imagery, showing the tracks of research cruises that have produced the higher resolution. (For those who really want to dive in, there is information on the cruises themselves, and even the original bathymetry data.)
-- Edited by dorian on Sunday 10th of April 2022 03:09:37 PM
Thx Dorian. Very interesting.
I'll put my tin hat back in the draw now. Lol
I can also see a small slight imprint on the ocean floor map. Think I make it out to be "2022 Google". I'm sure aliens put that there too. They even knew the year we would find it.
-- Edited by Corndoggy on Sunday 10th of April 2022 05:22:31 PM
-- Edited by Corndoggy on Sunday 10th of April 2022 07:06:07 PM
He was quite sure that it was the result of high intensity under-sea-floor resources search explorations.
He could not account for the seeming random search patterns and why the information has been uploaded
to Google.
If anyone would have known all about the lines it would be he, has spent all his life at university and
with the oil company.
To me still remains somewhat of a mystery. Would like to know more.