Having downloaded and played with Google Earth for a bit, I wonder how genuinely useful it is, despite the fact that you can get up close to the landscape and "fly" over it, so to speak. My gut tells me that a LOT of computer gimmickry is going to to enable Google Earth to do that, with all the consequent image distortions, biases, and all manner of other digital deviltry. It's a carnival funhouse kind of thing, but I feel it has limited genuine research value, at best.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP