Wednesday 7 August 2013

WoGE #393

It was quite a search to find WoGE#392 that was published by Matthew last Sunday. Looking at the area I recognised the infrastructure in the landscape as American, but without the square grids that are common in the westerly states. 
So the idea was to investigate the eastern states and particularly the southern states. The search started in South-Carolina, Georgia en North-Florida, but without any luck. I must have overlooked the area (square eyes) since I found the location in Georgia after searching the SE of the USA again two days later.

Although the inland sand dunes are quite interesting, the local population might have other ideas on this. It was not easy to find information on the brown-areas that were clearly in the centre of Matthew's picture. But the connection to the Ohopee river brought some light in the darkness.

My last WoGE challenge (WoGE#391) was located in New Zealand. This one is closer to home. Unfortunately this is not a hint, since almost everything is closer to my home than New Zealand is.

The geology is similar for most of the whole depicted area, but there is something more special about the centre of the picture. Try to find the story behind the formation of this area.

Good luck with the search.

9 comments:

  1. I find this to be an interesting question: "Where is the location opposite to mine on the globe". If we take the center of the netherlands for example, we get these coordinates: 52.25°,5.6°. The opposite location would be 52.25°-90° , 5.6°-180° = -37.75°, -174.39. The closest land is either North New Zealand or the Chatham Islands. Both locations do have the same distance to the opposite spot. If we take South Germany into the calculation, the next land to the opposite spot would be clearly the Chatham Islands.

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    1. Hello Felix,

      Nice that you put this question in relation to my "non-hint". However, your calculation to my opinion is not quite right. On a globe the "opposite" location is always 180° away and not 90°. This is even through when we make a different way of positioning for latitude and longitude. For that reason the opposite location for 52.25°N would be 52.25°+180°=232.25°. A recalculation from this to our latitude system would lead to 52.25°S.

      So the opposite location of The Netherlands would be 52.25°S, 174.4°W. On that location you find a lot of water. The nearest land is actually Antipodes Island. I encourage reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes_Islands, since here the name of the island is explained. It has everything to do with being on the other side of the globe.

      By the way: I hope my current WoGE is not too hard. To maintain some speed in the game I will publish a hint when no answer is found in about 30 hours from now.

      Rob

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  2. Rob, you are right. Thank you for pointing that out.

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  3. Rob: it could be we do have a winner. On WOGE390 Brian tells me, he could solve but cannot log in the comments, as he has no OPENID or GOOGLEAccounts. Maybe you could change your settings for posts including Anonymous comments. (on BLOGSPOT: DESIGN SETTINGS PostsAndComments COMMENTS WhoCanComment : "everybody".

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  4. This has been done now. Thanks for the tip. Let us wait and see what Brian has found!

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  5. Thanks Felix, Rob. Since I last played WoGE a couple years ago I see a few new players and their new blogs must default to no anonymous posting.

    Anyway...

    I have the location, but I'm not sure I have the local detail Rob is looking for. But here goes...

    59°13'30.55"N, 14°25'58.10"E (59.225154°, 14.432805°)

    Degerfors, Sweden.

    Sweden and neighbors were scoured by the glacial shield during the last ice age. I suspected an area like this based on the long lakes oriented in parallel. I looked in Canada for a short time but those areas lacked the right farm and road "textures". Then it was just a matter of finding lakes oriented the right direction.

    More specifically, this area of Sweden is rich in minerals, notably it seems there were a lot of iron mines until the "steel crises" of the 1970's shut many of them down.

    Degerfors appears to be home of one of the regions ironworks.

    Beyond that, as just a geo-hobbyist, I'm not familiar with the area enough to say why the region is so rich in minerals, and I've not been able to find much information on this specific location. What I did find I found via Wikipedia's short article on Degerfors, and the local historic province of Varmland which made mention of a mining district called Bergslagen.

    Brian

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    1. Brian,

      You found the correct location, but of course you knew that already. You also found the geology that (as I described) is similar for the whole depicted area. You did not find the special geology for the area just south of the iron factory. Nevertheless you deserve it to win this challenge, congratulations!

      You would probably have found the special geology I was looking for when you had turned on “Pictures” in the Google Earth menu. Most of the pictures in the area are related to Sveafallen. That was the special geological feature in this area and was in the centre of the picture. I will explain Sveafallen on the “My WoGEs” page in this blog.

      I am looking forward to your new challenge.

      Rob

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    2. Bummer. I only got it half right. Thank you for your detailed description. Even with the pictures I might not have understood the significance. But knowing the name "sveafallen" might have led me in the right direction. The place looks beautiful. That would really be something to see if one could travel back in time.

      I already have a place selected for my WoGE. I just need to get it posted on my blog. Should be up within a few hours. I'll post again when it is. In the meantime my humble blog is at: http://www.skywise711.com/blog/

      Brian

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  6. WoGE #394 is online!!!

    http://www.skywise711.com/blog/2013/08/11/where-on-google-earth-394/

    Good luck everyone.

    Thank you Rob for letting me win even though I missed the specific detail you were looking for.

    Brian

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