EVS-Islands

Emirau Island PP

Emirau Island was occupied by US military during WW II. It was used as an airbase. The airfield's remains are still visible. Emirau's other claim to fame was Charles Lindbergh's contributions to the war effort while flying combat missions from the island. Working as a civilian pilot, he flew a number of combat missions with military pilots against Japanese targets within a 6 to 9 hour flight range of the island. Lindbergh's nature was to analyze. During these missions he determined optimal flight settings to attain maximum range for the F4U Corsair.

A number of websites detail Lindbergh's contributions to the war effort. Wikipedia has an excellent article detailing Lindbergh's life and contributions to aviation. A website discussing Lindbergh's WW-II contributions is titled, Charles Lindbergh and the 475th Fighter Group. He was a trusting soul that was thrust into the public's withering spotlight. It cost him his son's life and permanently led to his on-again, off-again relationship with the United States government.

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Now about this island. It is part of a larger group of islands, the Saint Matthias Group. I selected it initially because I had previously mapped an island in the area, Ponam Island PP. I thought it would be interesting to work on another island in the same vicinity. While digitizing, I noticed the distinct manmade ground signature. It looked like either some sort of exotic farming operation or an abandoned WW-II airfield. It was the latter. During the research phase of the project I learned of Lindbergh's involvement.

I am continually amazed at the stories that are part and parcel to many of my island projects. It seems every place has it's important story to tell. It just needs a willing audience.

Enjoy!

Labels: Charles Lindbergh, island, Landsat, map, Marplot, Melanesia, Papua, Saint Matthias Group

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/20/2007 07:46:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The Quaking Carterets

Okay, I know that all of you can read. I just wanted to try this little MP3 player out and see what a mini-podcast would be like. The audio portion took about 45 minutes to complete. I used Audacity, a freeware piece of recording and editing software. I created my 3-minute+ talk, with loads of corrections. I uploaded my saved MP3 file to my Google Page (allows for 100 MBs of free file storage). The little player consists of a few lines of code that you can copy and past to your post from Google Operating System site. I created this post with my Pictobrowser image viewer and my mini-podcast. Easy!

What do you think? Is it overkill or a different sort of touch? Give me some feedback. Thanks and...

Enjoy!

Labels: flashplayer, Google, macromedia, mp3, Pictobrowser, podcast

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/18/2007 10:30:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The Quaking Carterets

Yes, the Carterets appear to be sinking. "Why" is the question.

I have a previous post about the Carterets that led to my current fascination with this diminishing atoll. Apparently, others around the world are fascinated as well, as many visitors are checking out my post on the Carterets.

The folks living on the atoll know that they are sinking and they blame it on greenhouse gases. They look to the industrial nations of the world to pony up some bucks to relocate them to a more permanent place. It sounds like a fair request, if in fact that is the sole reason for the atolls submergence.

Wikipedia has an interesting article devoted to the plight of the Carterets. In the article the possibility that part of the problem might be related to a fishing practice employed by the inhabitants - they occassionally fish with dynamite. I could see where that might compact a coral reef given enough explosives. But I suspect that dynamite, although contributing to their current plight, is not the primary cause.

I think we've got a combination of problems contributing to the sinking Carterets. I believe that global warming, shrinking ice caps and sea level rise, typhoons and and accompanying sea surge along with shifting tectonic plates are all erasing what little emerged land the Carterets have left. Atolls are geologically fragile structures. They are transitory entities shaped by sea and internal forces. Let's focus on earthquakes and subduction zones and plate tectonics. Now that's a real land shaper!

Carteret Atoll, unfortunately, is located at the juncture of a series of highly active tectonic plates. Some of the plates are sliding north, some to the south and some are diving under the others. How do I know these are highly active? Earthquakes! These, along with volcanoes which are scattered throughout the area, are signature events of active tectonic plates. As you study the accompanying maps, you are viewing one of the most geologically active regions in the world. This part of the world, including the Carterets, is dynamically changing. The Carterets could be diving under the sea because the plate they are located on is diving. The reason other atolls in the area are not diving could be because they are slightly higher than the Carterets or their location is not diving as rapidly as the Carterets is. Whatever the reasons, which I will leave to the scientific community to determine, the Carterets are sinking.

The Carterets are located in an unfortunate geological place and that is their difficult situation. Their problem is that they will drown if they don't get off of their islands. I have a solution, but that is for my next post.

PS - You might be interested in my previous post about Carteret Atoll .

Labels: Carteret Atoll, earthquakes, global warming, island, map, Marplot, plate tectonics

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/17/2007 06:50:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Let's give this Wikimapia a try. First we will take a look at Little Coco Island from my previous post. I went into Wikimapia and created the box and information. I selected to post the map to my blog. Wikimapia creates the iframe code. I copied the lines of code into my post and the map appears. Looks okay to me. Plus, the imagery is from Digital Globe giving one high resolution from which to explore in great detail.

Little Coco Island

You should be able to select the above link and it will take you to the post at Wikimapia. And it works. Cool!

The registration is easy, takes about 1-minute. You can begin either placing posts to the map or correcting other posts. Or like me, you can use it to give your readers greater access to imagery.

Now, I know that many readers have already discovered this nice addition to your blogging experience, but for those of you that have not . . .

Enjoy!

Labels: China, Digital Globe, Google Earth, Indian, island, Myanmar, Wikimapia

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/16/2007 07:00:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Coco Islands BM

At least once a year I tell my student's that before I was a teacher I was a spy. They are skeptical, but my admission is true. During the "Cold War", I used to listen to the bad guys (the same ones that are our friends now). It was an interesting job, not too flashy. But one that, occassionally, got very exciting.

What does this have to do with Coco Islands? It turns out that Myanmar and China struck a deal back in 1992 that would allow the Chinese to build a SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) base on Great Coco Island. As you study the images that I gathered from Google Earth, you will see a hard runway and a number of buildings scattered about. They could be parts of the SIGINT base. South of the runway are small homes that appear to occupied by local villagers. Locals are important to a SIGINT operation as they are the hired help to cook, clean and tend to the spies.

Some of the sources are as follows: 1) Save the Sea Turtles and Coco Islands 2) Asia Times article that discusses Myanmar and China 3) And finally, an article that speculates that China does not have a military base on Great Coco.

Life is interesting. I would like to be able to eventually map the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. To begin that project, I mapped the Coco Island group which is located at the northern extremity of the island group. Now I learn that the Chinese use the islands as a SIGINT gathering station that primarily gathers intelligence on Indian military operations and maritime traffic within this busy area. Very interesting to learn that SIGINT gathering is still in vogue

Enjoy!

Labels: Burma, China, Global Mapper, Google Earth, Indian, Indian Ocean, island, Landsat, map, Myanmar, SIGINT, TerraMetrics

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/15/2007 10:57:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Gavdos Island GR

This is a repost of Gavdos Island (Nisos Gavdos). This island is the southernmost landfall of Europe. It is not your typical tourist mecca. The tourist typically spends a couple of days hiking and looking out at the deep blue sea toward Africa and the Middle East. This is an oft requested post and it is my hope that the addition of contours will help the intrepid tourist find new ways and old ways to explore this island.

Enjoy!

Labels: Global Mapper, Google Earth, Greece, island, Landsat, map, Mediterranean

Posted by Mr Minton at 1/14/2007 07:56:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post