• Wired News, Monday, January 22, 2007 11:15 AM

This is cool: last month, scientists gathering at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco showed off programs they created, thanks to a new Google-developed language called KML, or keyhole markup language, that allows programmers to create models using Google Earth.

In one of the presentations, John Bailey, a project leader on the volcanic activity in Alaska's Aleutian islands, demonstrated how to prevent a potential Vesuvious-style eruption in the region using a program he created from Google Earth that analyzes data, assesses threat levels and displays results all at once.

Geologists have traditionally used satellite data, seismic sensing equipment and other sources to help detect possible eruptions. Google, sticking true to its mission to make information easily accessible, brings these three disparate sources of data together, integrating them into a visual display.

The map, says Bailey, helps scientists and emergency personnel make split-second judgments. Scientists will use Bailey's program to not only predict earthquakes, but tsunamis as well.

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