Thanks to the excellent high-quality imagery in Google Earth, some “scientists”¹ claim to have discovered a 1,000-year-old forgotten relic of the fishing world.

Just off the coast of Wales they spotted this large v-shaped row of rocks beneath the water – which looked like a traditional British fishing weir. This was a fishing method whereby the tide would bring fish through the gaps in the rocks, which would then be blocked by wattle fences when the tide turned to flow out again.

The only problem with fishing in this way was that it was far too effective – this was so well known that the Magna Carta, published in 1215, actually includes the following clause:

(33) All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

So our intrepid “scientists” actually took a trip to Wales to check out in person what they had found, and sure enough, one underwater scuba adventure later, they emerged smugly from the water like some sort of Internet-savvy Indiana Jones’.

How would “scientists” cope these days I wonder, without Google Earth to help them do their research?

Thanks to Frank at the GEarth Blog and Jason Kottke.

The longest staircase in the world can be found on the slopes of Mount Niesen in the Swiss Alps.

The 11,674 steps run alongside the Niesenbahn funicular which travels from the side of the Kander river in Mülenen (altitude 693m) to the terminus near the 2362m summit of Mount Niesen.

During the 28 minute ride, the funicular – which opened in 1910 – travels through lush Alpine woods, passes through several tunnels and across some elevated sections.

While the staircase is only used by service personnel, it is opened to 200 people for one day a year for the Niesenlauf stair run. The Galerien pages of the race’s German site give you some idea of what an ordeal this must be – running through cloud, rain or even snow, though the race takes place in June.

The record for the event is 1h2m for men and 1h9m for women, which I find remarkably fast considering the number of steps is equivalent to climbing the CN Tower 4.5 times, or Taipei 101 almost 6 times or the Empire State Building more than 7 times, though it does look like some sections are somewhat less steep than others.

There appears to be a more conventional hiking trail for public use, with the number of switchbacks along the way giving some sense of how steep this pyramid-shaped mountain really is.

The mountain’s visitor guide has some great pictures and information, and YouTube has a fast-forward trip up the funicular and a high-speed stroll to the summit.

There’s some odd sightings on the ocean floor, thanks to the much-improved ocean surface depth images that were added to Google Earth and Maps last week!

Reader aliosha was browsing the atlantic and discovered a bizarre grid pattern in the deep.

About 150 km square, it presumably isn’t a natural occurrence, but what else could create such a pattern it what must be extremely-deep water?

Even more bizarre, off the coast of Indonesia is what would easily be the largest writing on the planet. At around 130 km wide, it would dwarf second place by a factor of about 30x.

Unfortunately, it is only the largest writing on Google Earth, as this message doesn’t actually exist.

It says “DTS/SIO”, and was added by David T. Sandwell (DTS), a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO).

The sea bed imagery comes from a variety of bathymetry sources, including the SIO, and Mr Sandwell added the false underwater canyons so that they could see where the SIO’s data was being used.

Thanks to aliosha and GEarth Blog (who also have news of a special event Google are hosting next week in relation to oceans on Google Earth).

Yes, we’re finally back, and as to be expected, we missed some great Google Earth-related news while we were off.

Firstly the story that seems to have sprung up everywhere is (of course) a Street View one. The garage419 site posted images from a high mountain road in Colorado, where the Google car supposedly took some spy-shots of a fleet of top-secret, as-yet-unreleased Porches!

This is actually the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, which is the highest paved vehicle road in North America, and apparently the only place in the world where car manufacturers can test their vehicles at altitudes of up to 4,306 metres (14,127 feet). Looks like those clever German engineers don’t leave anything to chance, eh?

Next, the Daily Fail tells the story of a “Lost World” discovered with the help of Google Earth. Our satellite sightseeing friends at Kew Gardens spotted an unexpected patch of green forest in the mountains of Mozambique, and when they paid the area a visit, were rewarded with the discovery of a new species of adder, three new species of butterfly, a rarely seen orchid, giant snakes, and colonies of rare birds.

Of course the country’s crappest newspaper failed to include a link to said unspoiled paradise, so it was up to the always reliable Stefan at Ogle Earth to come up with the goods.

Stefan points out that the most interesting thing about the area from up here is that even when viewing it with the enormously comprehensive Geonames.org database loaded, there are still no place names to be seen. Which suggests to us that anyone could find their own undiscovered paradise, simply by looking for places that aren’t marked in Geonames or any of Google Earth’s own databases! Fame and fortune awaits, clearly.

Finally, we come to the story of an American “treasure hunter”, who has gone to court to try to win the right to excavate a sunken ship, which he says he discovered using Google Earth. Mr Nathan Smith reckons the ship ran aground and sank in the mud near the Mission River, Texas, in 1822 while trying to avoid a hurricane. Mr Smith claims that half the crew died during the voyage and those remaining were killed by a local cannibal tribe. He also believes that the ship contains $3 billion in buried treasure¹.

Of course Mr Smith isn’t telling exactly where this sunken treasure is, only that it’s somewhere around here. However sources that have seen the Google Earth image in question describe it as looking “something like a shoe print“, so maybe we could beat him to it!

So, what else did we miss?

Like the rest of the world at the moment, it’s obvious that the 2200 residents of Santa Claus, Indiana, are totally immersed in the Christmas spirit.

Originally named Santa Fe, the town had to change its name in 1856 when it applied for a post office only to discover that there was already another town with that name in the state. Wanting to keep the first part of the name, Santa Claus was the only thing the citizens could think of, though this history has since been embellished with tales of small children, snowy evenings and sleigh bells.

The town exploits its name as much as possible, with streets (Mistletoe Drive, Candy Cane Lane, not to mention a road for each of the reindeer), lakes (Christmas, Holly and Noel) and entire subdivisions (Christmas Lake Village, Holiday Village) following the theme.

Holiday World is North America’s oldest themed amusement park, having opened in 1946 as Santa Claus Land. The name now reflects the move to celebrate holidays (and attract visitors) throughout the year. The park includes numerous rollercoasters and other rides, as well as the Splashin’ Safari waterpark, with the world’s largest enclosed water slide.

The post office mentioned earlier (which is now located in a small mall, complete with Santa outside) came to notice in 1914 when the postmaster James Martin started to answer letters addressed to Santa Claus. Today, a team of volunteers respond to around 10,000 letters sent to Santa Claus from children around the world. The Santa Claus Museum is a couple of doors down.