When viewed from above, much of the landscape of South Carolina is clearly covered in mysterious oval depressions that aren’t obvious from ground level. Known as “Carolina Bays”, nobody really knows how these unique geological features were formed.

Despite their name, Carolina Bays can also be found in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and northcentral Florida. They vary in size from one to several thousand acres, and are often gathered in groups. Many are filled with water and named as lakes, but most contain vegetated wetland.

Most striking however, is that every single one is invariably aligned in almost exactly same direction - which has led some people to claim that they might be the result of a meteor impact. It would have to have been a pretty serious impact, as there are estimated to be over 500,000 of them. This is Lake Waccamaw, north Carolina, which is widely considered the largest Carolina bay.

George Howard (a bit of a Carolina Bay fanatic), has created an exhaustive KML file that marks the location of many thousands of the bays in North Carolina. This image was taken in Google Earth, and shows the white outlines that have been used to mark the locations.

So, who here can solve the mystery of the Carolina Bays?

You can read more about Carolina Bays at Wikipedia. Thanks to Keith Wright, david and Ogle Earth.

The Google Lat Long blog has announced that Google has just added 12 more US cities to their street view coverage, bringing their total coverage to, um.. lots. The new cities added are as follows:

• Albany and Schenectady, NY
• Boise, ID
• Juneau, AK
• Kansas City, MO
• Manchester, NH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill), NC
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT

And presumably just for today (because today is Valentine’s Day in case you’d forgotten), it seems the little Street View guy is standing on a little love heart.

Aww, puke.

There are hundreds of different aircraft “in flight” to be seen on Google Earth, waaaaay too many to post them all here on Google Sightseeing¹. But every now and then there’s a rare sighting that we feel the need to share.

A field in North Carolina features two antique WWII warplanes flying overhead: a Grumman TBF Avenger and a yellow North American T-6 Texan, which you can clearly see has “USAF” written on the right wing.

Of the 9,836 Avengers built, just 42 are still considered air-worthy (including the one we see here!). What’s even more amazing though is that the nearby Hickory Regional airport has two of the same rare aircraft parked on the tarmac!

OK, it’s not really a coincidence, this second image is a different aerial photograph so it’s almost certain that these are the same planes.

Thanks to morgantongis, Delta102 & jtouran at GE, via GEarth Blog

Despite Google’s best efforts, someone has finally managed to spam Google Earth with a Viagra advert!

Well I guess it had to happen sooner or later…

Thanks to Mark.

You can all rest easy tonight; I’ve discovered peace on earth!

The first bit of peace is found in Watershed Park, a dense woodland near Redmond with trails for cycling, horse riding, etc. A local cyclist took this ground level photo.

There’s twice as much peace in the back yard of Yates Mill Elementary School, although the larger of the two is a bit faded.

Thanks: Sl0play & Brad Tollmann

The Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk commemorates the first successful powered flight, which was achieved by the two brothers here on December 17th 1903.

The straight dirt path going from the main memorial to the NNW leads directly to the marker for the launch-point of the first flight (at the end of the path near the two dark structures). So that pilots can visit the memorial there is a modern runway to the west and it’s common for those flying past to dip their wings to the memorial out of respect for the innovators.

Thanks: jadam, Raymond Kallman, Joe McMahon, Chris, Adrian Likins, Tim, Patrick Howard, Chris Wesley, Scott K, Kevin Nutt, Andrew Cembor

This is pretty cool. It’s a Marine Air Corps runway but they have the outline of an aircraft carrier painted on the runway with little planes and everything. This is obviously for carrier landing training, a wee bit safer than attempting it on the real thing. I’ve heard that landing on an aircraft carrier can be one of the most diffcult things a navy pilot can do. Chris Dawson tell us:

They even have the cable mechanism there to slow the planes on landing (1/2 mile from my parents’ house). We usually see Harriers practicing from here.

Thanks Chris!

Arrrgggh! Haven’t these drivers noticed they’re about to be vaporised by some giant glowing-green alien writing?!

Oh dear… Did I just mention aliens? Whoops.

Thanks to David for alerting us to the impending invasion.