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What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

nautil.us

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Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#41

Post by Ferret7446 »

epivosism wrote: post #38

I often think about a scifi story where after X million years, somehow familiar humanity survives, and two plates containing land with VERY different natural flora and fauna approach each other - for example, california, home of many native plant defenders, and australia. As they get closer than 50 miles, news would start to mention making sure not to cross-transplant animals and plants. Under 20 miles, the wind and…

There are two cycles that govern human social change: the generational ~10 year cycle and the lifetime ~80 year cycle. Each generation adopts new values, and once a generation dies their values disappear. Tectonic movement is so slow that I think reality will be much more boring than your scifi story. The hundred thousand years where the two regions are "close enough" is more than enough time for the two peoples to both integrate and experience conflict hundreds of times over.

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#42

Post by mavhc »

fy20 wrote: post #18

The article doesn't mention it, but how are the coordinates of property boundaries recorded in South California to take into account the drift? In my relatively tectonically stable country there is a single coordinate system for the whole country. I'd imagine you need to record distance to a local landmark or similar? And what happens when there are shifts that end up in roads split in two like in Turkey last year? h…

https://www.xyht.com/surveying/more-on-the-datum-epoch/

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#44

Post by alenrozac »

ffsm8 wrote: post #40
epivosism wrote: post #38

I often think about a scifi story where after X million years, somehow familiar humanity survives, and two plates containing land with VERY different natural flora and fauna approach each other - for example, california, home of many native plant defenders, and australia. As they get closer than 50 miles, news would start to mention making sure not to cross-transplant animals and plants. Under 20 miles, the wind and…

Humanity won't be alive by that time. It's a interesting setting to explore in fiction, but has no chance of becoming reality.

you must be fun at parties

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#45

Post by defrost »

epivosism wrote: post #38

I often think about a scifi story where after X million years, somehow familiar humanity survives, and two plates containing land with VERY different natural flora and fauna approach each other - for example, california, home of many native plant defenders, and australia. As they get closer than 50 miles, news would start to mention making sure not to cross-transplant animals and plants. Under 20 miles, the wind and…

> after X million years [...] two plates containing land with VERY different natural flora and fauna approach each other - for example, california [...] and australia.

Yeah, nah - the flora jumped the gap 150 years ago already . . .

https://www.independent.com/2011/01/15/how-eucalyptus-came-c...

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#46

Post by a2800276 »

topherclay wrote: post #31
brendanashworth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property boundaries aren't delimited by GPS coordinates, but rather a surveyor's instructions on how to locate the boundary from a set of known landmarks. In most US states, the Public Land Survey System [1] gives "meridians" and "baselines" for each region serving as the regional center. Radiating out, every 6 miles, is a new "township," with its corners serving as the local landmark for property boundaries. [1] htt…

But so that means that you could lose land or gain land if enough earth moves and the relative change to the land marks is in your favor or not. But it's just not a big enough of a deal to do it a different way. I do wonder what the most significant occurrence of that is though.

The most significant occurrence is probably land loss due to tidal erosion and/or flooding.

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#49

Post by tetris11 »

jraph wrote: post #48

I wanted to know how it's handled on OpenStreetMap, and here's how [1], on a first of April anyway. If someone knows more on this, don't hesitate to share :-) [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/31/osm-plate-tectonic...

I was wondering if they were going to apply the correction to all objects, but as they hinted at in the post, only objects old enough to cause a half meter shift will probably be corrected.

Edit: Oh, April Fools. Seemed doable.

Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)

#50

Post by jraph »

tetris11 wrote: post #49
jraph wrote: post #48

I wanted to know how it's handled on OpenStreetMap, and here's how [1], on a first of April anyway. If someone knows more on this, don't hesitate to share :-) [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/31/osm-plate-tectonic...

I was wondering if they were going to apply the correction to all objects, but as they hinted at in the post, only objects old enough to cause a half meter shift will probably be corrected. Edit: Oh, April Fools. Seemed doable.

The post is an April Fools, to be clear.

edit: right? It seemed credible, I only noticed the date at the end. The part where they would hide the edit from history was incredibly shady though, and that's what made me look even closer. I would hope they would never do this, if they even could. Without this part, the post would not have looked like an April Fools, just an actually good idea.

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