The past decade has seen a rapid increase in the application of high-resolution imagery and geographic-based information systems across every segment of society from security intelligence to product marketing to scientific research. Google Earth has positioned itself at the forefront of this spatial information wave by providing free access to high-resolution imagery through a simple, user-friendly interface. Whereas Google Earth imagery has been widely exploited across the earth sciences for spatial visualization, education, and place-based searches, few studies have utilized the high-resolution imagery to yield quantitative insights about the processes and mechanisms acting at the earth's surface. In this paper, we detail the benefits of the underlying high-resolution imagery available within Google Earth, review the limited published research to date, and utilize this imagery to quantitatively illuminate previously difficult and unresolved questions within the discipline of geomorphology involving: (1) channel-width variability and scaling relations in the tectonically active Himalaya; (2) landslide characteristics related to large magnitude climatic and tectonic events in Haiti; and (3) identification and quantification of laterally offset geomorphic features within eastern California. In each example, we compare analyses using freely available Google Earth imagery with standard imagery and techniques (e.g., Landsat, ASTER, lidar) to demonstrate the potential benefits of using high-spatial resolution Google Earth imagery over established methodologies. In addition, we discuss the potential limitations and problems with using the imagery currently available in Google Earth and propose favorable future applications, namely studies in remote terrains and those requiring high-resolution imagery across a large spatial extent, where purchasing such imagery in an academic environment would be cost-prohibitive. Whether as a supplement, for reconnaissance, or as the primary data set, high-resolution Google Earth imagery, when properly applied, holds great promise for quantitatively tackling previously unresolved problems in the study of earth surface processes.

Abstract Magnetostratigraphic dating of sedimentary strata is often the most precise technique available for temporally constraining the evolution of and controls upon sedimentary basins over I Ma in age. Uncertainties in the absolute dates derived by this technique are often difficult to assess quantitatively, despite the desirability of specifying their precision. An explicit discrimination should be made between correlations of the local magneto-polarity stratigraphy (MPS) to the global geomagnetic polarity time scale (GPTS) based on independent biostratigraphic or radiometric time control and those based on the smoothest derived sediment-accumulation rates. Situations in which there is a single, compelling correlation and those in which the correlation is the most reasonable of several possibilities should also be explicitly distinguished. In the latter case, alternative feasible correlations should be illustrated in order to permit a qualitative assessment of the uncertainties involved. Two classes of uncertainties are associated with the temporal calibration of magnetostratigraphic sections: those related to the creation of the local MPS and those related to the GPTS. Imprecision in measured stratal thicknesses and in the position of magnetozone boundaries can produce significant (up to 50 percent) uncertainties both in magnetozone patterns and in derived rates of sediment accumulation. Uncertainties in the GPTS result from uncertainties in the radiometric calibration of magnetic anomaly patterns. Comparison of available GPTS’s indicates uncertainties of (1) as much as 100 percent for sediment accumulation rate calculations involving intervals of less than 1–2 my and (2) up to 3 my in absolute ages. An example drawn from the Late Cretaceous to Eocene Axhandle thrust-top Basin of central Utah illustrates these uncertainties.