Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Aren't parties just a celebration of not being dead yet?
What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
61–70 of 84 posts
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: > WGS 84 is a global standard tied to no one plate. In essence, it is fixed to Earth’s deep interior. Those drift vectors are based on GPS, which the article also says relies on WGS 84z
> it is fixed to Earth’s deep interior Which is molten and also not static?
The core of the earth is solid no?
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it is fixed to Earth’s deep interior Which is molten and also not static?
The core of the earth is solid no?
It's based on a center of mass point of the earth.
The system is an example of an "ECEF" or Earth Centered Earth Fixed system.
Good writeup here -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-centered,_Earth-fixed_...
Edit - fixed center statement.
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#64Earlier 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.
Surveyors reference monuments on the ground. Since tectonic plates tend to move together then so so short lines and their corners.
It can get complicated on large tracts or lengths, but stuff like rail roads and freeways are composed of many small properties anyway.
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#65The Australian tectonic plates move about 7cm a year, if you didn't adjust for it they'd be losing 2-5 thousand dollars a year as the fence moved in many suburban homes. Of course you'd gain it on the other side. Google needs to be dealing with it constantly, you'd be able to observe more errors on Google maps, ie. look at Google directions and how often mistakes are made, if it wasn't updated monthly? I'd guess year…
Yep the monuments on the plates here in USA have actual published velocities.
Which means yo can model what the coordinates should be after some previous survey and go check them.
Pretty cool!
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core of the earth is solid no?
It's based on a center of mass point of the earth. The system is an example of an "ECEF" or Earth Centered Earth Fixed system. Good writeup here - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-centered,_Earth-fixed_... Edit - fixed center statement.
I still don't quite get it. So the center is the barycenter of the planet, but that only gives you the point, not the axes.
The Z axis seems the most clearly defined as it's just aligned to the planet's rotation and the XY plane could be defined as just halving that, but the the rotation of the XY plane doesn't seem to be well defined. The article seems to fix it to the first meridian which is a land reference and subject to drift, so it would be inaccurate. Or there'd be some reference point in the south atlantic where the drift is zero and the rest is relative to it?
Further along this line of discussion, it's always been immensely puzzling to me how sun-relative solar system localization systems handle this sort of thing, since while it's possible to locate the sun and a few stars to track your absolute rotation and one translational axis, where the hell do they get the other two? One reference might be Earth signals I suppose, and possibly Jupiter? But they are all coplanar so the Z axis resolution from triangulation must be complete crap.
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those will be interesting patch notes for google maps "we removed most of the gulf islands, part of BC, Washington, Oregon, and California" ...
At least that's guaranteed to be extremely far in the future. Vs. "we removed Naples, and most other south-central Italian cities, due to the recent VEI 8 eruption of the Campe Flegree caldera complex...".
> At least that's guaranteed to be extremely far in the future.
a subduction zone quake in the PNW is already overdue (they appear to happen regularly with a periodicity of 3-600 years). The famous Atlantic article from several years ago made it clear that it can be expected at any time now.
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#68Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's based on a center of mass point of the earth. The system is an example of an "ECEF" or Earth Centered Earth Fixed system. Good writeup here - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-centered,_Earth-fixed_... Edit - fixed center statement.
I still don't quite get it. So the center is the barycenter of the planet, but that only gives you the point, not the axes. The Z axis seems the most clearly defined as it's just aligned to the planet's rotation and the XY plane could be defined as just halving that, but the the rotation of the XY plane doesn't seem to be well defined. The article seems to fix it to the first meridian which is a land reference and su…
The IERS reference median is “the weighted average (in the least squares sense) of the reference meridians of the hundreds of ground stations contributing to the IERS network” [1].
Re: What happens to Google Maps when tectonic plates move? (2020)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't quite get it. So the center is the barycenter of the planet, but that only gives you the point, not the axes. The Z axis seems the most clearly defined as it's just aligned to the planet's rotation and the XY plane could be defined as just halving that, but the the rotation of the XY plane doesn't seem to be well defined. The article seems to fix it to the first meridian which is a land reference and su…
The IERS reference median is “the weighted average (in the least squares sense) of the reference meridians of the hundreds of ground stations contributing to the IERS network” [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IERS_Reference_Meridian
Ah so it's just averaged out, that's a decent solution I suppose. But that still makes it fixed to the surface for the most part.