Scientists at HRI played a vital role in the creation of “Ocean in Google Earth,” a new web-based interface that allows users to soar over the ocean bottom, view videos and photographs of marine life, watch the trajectories of marine animals tagged with satellite transmitters or explore real-time measurements from oceanographic buoys, among many other features. Dr. Tom Shirley and Dr. Ian MacDonald attended the roll-out of the new product to the media amid much fanfare on February 2 in San Francisco at the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.

The idea for this innovative software was conceived by Dr. Sylvia Earle, Chair of the Advisory Council for HRI. Earle then convinced Google to support the development of the software and helped establish an international Google Ocean Council of Advisors of leading ocean scientists to help advise with its

structure and content. HRI's Associate Director Dr. Wes Tunnell was one of the 20 original members of this Council, and he and Tom Shirley attended several workshops at Google and hosted one Google workshop at HRI for the development of the new ocean website. Dr. Tunnell and TAMUCC oceanographer Dr. MacDonald contributed several links, photographs and videos to unique and charismatic features in the Gulf of Mexico. The Google debut features more than 150 links in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, making the Gulf region one of the more prominent virtual destinations in the digital ocean.

How Ocean in Google Earth will evolve is unknown, but it already provides a powerful educational and reference tool. The Ocean in Google Earth 5.0 can be downloaded for free at http://earth.google.com/. Explore the digital Gulf of Mexico without getting wet.