2007-2008 US-ITASE Travel Log in Google
Earth
Rainbow Gecko Travels to Antarctica with US-ITASE!
Brian Welch is the St. Olaf College member participating in the 2007 US-ITASE
(US portion of the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition) field
program in Antarctica. Brian visited the two first grade classrooms at Greenvale
Park Elementary School in Northfield, MN as part of our outreach program to
reach people outside of the scientific community. The classes gave Brian their
class mascot, Rainbow Gecko to take with him to Antarctica. Below is a link
to a Google Earth file that will track Rainbow Gecko's (and Brian's) travels
to Antarctica and across the ice sheet to the South Pole. Updates to the travel
log will be posted as often as possible during their travels (Oct. 26, 2007
through late January 2008). Photos and web links are included wherever possible.
Additional photos of the traverse will be added once they return to a location
with full internet access.
Instructions:
- Google Earth is a free software package from Google that will run on a Mac
or a PC. It can be downloaded at http://www.google.com/earth/.
Note that Google Earth is not the same as the mapping web site at maps.google.com.
- Once Google Earth is installed you can click on the following link to open
a network link in Google Earth. Allow your web browser to open the file in
Google Earth.
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/welchb/GE_travel_log/Antarctic_Travel_Log_2007-08.kmz
- Once the link is loaded you can move it (click and drag it) from the Temporary
Places folder to your My Places folder. Every time you open Google Earth the
link will automatically check this web site to download any new log entries.
Google Earth automatically centers the map over North America. You'll be able
to see some our travel route across the country as we headed to New Zealand.
Locations visited during our travels are marked with a green gecko icon: 
.
Click on the icons to see more information about those locations. (Tip: If you
double-click an icon you will zoom in very close to that location). The travel
log is organized into folders that represent different parts of our travels:
the trip to New Zealand; Christchurch, NZ; McMurdo Station, and the Traverse.
You can open any of the folders and click on individual elements to zoom to
their locations and learn more! Double-click any of the folders in the collection
to zoom into those areas of the globe.
There is also a web-based travel
log for the traverse that is posted at the University of Maine. It is intended
for the general public.
We hope you enjoy following our travels!
Please note that this is an experimental travel log. Data
transmission from the ice sheet is intermittent and quite slow. Also, Susan
Welch is volunteering her time to keep the log files up to date on the web.
If there is a problem with the code or the files, the log may not be updated
for some time while the problem if resolved. Thanks for your patience and interest!