Google Earth History

I tagged my last post with "buildings", which led me to look at my other buildings post.

That turned out to be about the demolition of the Blackburn Meadows cooling towers. I found them on Google Earth and the image showed two flattened piles of concrete rubble. The image was updated on 21st September, 2008.

I've not really looked at the history thing much yet, but it does look interesting. It could almost end up being a sort of ultra hi-res time-lapse picture of the planet.

Here's the entrance to Wallasey Asda in May, 2000...



By 2005, the T junction had been replaced by a mini-roundabout...



And 2 years later, a red bus had managed to get to the middle of it...



A frivolous example I know, but Google Earth is documenting so much. They're not just taking a photograph. They're making a movie!

I wonder how somewhere like Pripyat will look. Or Alpine Glaciers. Or Antarctica. Or the Maldives. Like the roundabout above, I suppose there are lots of tiny changes that add up over a long period of time.

Of course there are exceptions.