Google Earth 3D landscape representations

Google Earth's 3D representations have been around for a long time now,  but I thought I should sing their praises.  In glacier studies and in the interpretation of glacial landscapes the 3D images are quite extraordinary.  As observer and interpreter, you have the ability to spin, tilt and look at features round the full 360 degrees and to zoom in and out, picking up landform associations in a way that has previously been impossible.  Here are just a few recent images I have collected through screenshots.

The cliff rampart which we called "Hell's Bells" when we were kayaking on Nordvestrfjord in 1962.  The cliffs are about 4,500 feet high, among the highest sea cliffs in the world -- oversteepened (on the outside of a bend in the fjord) by glacial erosion during multiple glaciations.  Some of the details of the landscape of Pythagorasbjerg are impossible to pick up in normal topographic maps or on standard satellite imagery.

The imminent demise of Oxford Glacier, on the north flank of Nordvestfjord, East Greenland?  The glacier is in dire straits.  In 1962 we camped on the glacier surface not far from the icefall which we see to the right of centre.  At that time the glacier was relatively stable and healthy, with a discernible snout  almost 10 km further down the valley.  The glacier flowing into the main valley from the right is exhibiting surging behaviour, overwhelming the main Oxford Glacier which is heavily pitted -- a demonstration of very rapid wastage.

Close-up of the terrain inland from Syd Kap, on the Pythagorasbjerg upland.  Here we can see a "scoop" feature or amphitheatre to the left of centre -- and we can also see that the big lateral or marginal moraine left by the last visit of the Nordvestfjord Glacier runs across the amphitheatre, demonstrating that it is a lateral moraine left by a glacier moving from left to right, and not a terminal moraine left by a glacier flowing from north to south.

.