Google Earth Community: Data Problems Compendium, v 1039, 19 Jun 2008

Data Problems > Image Blemishes > Swaths

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Current count: 117 regular + 20 patterned = 136

Swaths are image blemishes, not data errors. Only new images can remove them.

They are only on TerraMetrics 15-meter background images which are not known to be updated. They can be covered with higher resolution images.
Straight lines pointing West by Northwest at angles of between 7° 50' and 9°
Very straight edges, unlike aircraft contrails with irregular cloud edges
Widths of about 1/2 kilometer. Lengths of 100+ kilometers.
In bands of latitude at intervals of about 1° 30'
There is no convincing explanation for these image faults.
These appear identically in Microsoft's Windows Virtual Earth maps.
Most are are bands of single colors
10% are in various complex patterns

Each is traced to permit detection of global patterns.
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Afghanistan: 9

Algeria: 1

Argentina: 1

Australia: 3 patterned

Bolivia-Brazil border: 1

Brazil: 4

Canada: 2 patterned and 6 others

Chad: 5

Chile: 2

China: 3

Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana border 1 patterned

Egypt: 2

Eritrea: 2

Ethiopia: 4

Greenland: 7

Iceland: 2

India: 1

Iran: 4

Iran-Iraq-Turkey border: 2

Iraq: 1

Jordan-Israel-Egypt border: 1

Kazakhistan: 6

Kyrgystan: 2 patterned and 3 others

Libya: 6

Morocco: 2

Nigeria: 2

Pakistan: 5

Peru: 4

Russia: 10 patterned and 11 others

Saudi Arabia: 1

Somalia: 2

Sudan: 7

Tajikistan: 1 patterned

Thailand: 1

Tunisia: 1

Turkey: 7

USA: 1

Uzbekistan: 1
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Misaligned Swaths

These differ from the above swaths because there are no unusual colorations or patterns. Rather, they are strips of shifted imagery about half a kilometer wide which stretch up to 170 kilometers. Their misalignments vary up to 200 meters. The discovery came about while studying Brazil's Rio Curuça river slippage (24 March 2006) for illustration.

The shifted swaths only occur in the TerraMetrics low-resolution background imagery. We have found 4 in Peru and 2 in Brazil, and the shifts are ALSO found in Microsoft's Virtual Earth AND in Yahoo Maps.

The effects are most visible where the swaths cross a river: Rio Curuça in Brazil, Rio Javan on the border, and Rio Amazonas in Peru We illustrate where some of the swaths cross the Amazon River in Peru.

Edited by PriceCollins (01/28/08 01:50 PM)

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