Name: Explore the Galapagos Islands with Google Maps
Uploaded: 2013-09-16T17:01:37.000Z
Duration: 7 min 9 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Galapagos is definitely the best conserved tropical archipelago in the world.

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So that makes really a unique place in the world. It's not just about its beauty, its not just about its famous touristic place.

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Its mainly about Galapagos' unique functional ecosystem.

The Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation invited Google to the Galapagos Islands

to collect imagery for both scientific applications and management of the islands.

Surprisingly, the Galapagos have not been that well mapped in the past.

There has always been satellite imagery, of course. But, to now take that next step and work with Google

to provide better mapping for Galapagos is something that's very very important for our work and much appreciated.

First time, first trekking in Galapagos, so let's see how it goes.

We usually see this kind of tortoise here and actually these tortoises are born in captivity.

They are part of the reproduction program of the Galapagos National Park.

Doing research in Galapagos is a very very tough task. So if there is some way to capture as much information as possible and

then having this information collection available for research it's just great

because you can minimize the cost of field work.

Invasive species have always been the biggest threat to the Galapagos Archipelago.

Invasive species are plants and animals that don't belong here, but once they are here,

they often turn into a threat for the endemic and the native wildlife.

We are brushing off the remains of {humadonis admisita} on Isabela Island.

And we're getting rid of all of these plants before we take it onto another island.

And we're just trying to get all the seeds, all the plant matter off.

Galapagos is one of those places that if you were to take anybody underwater, this is the location in the world you would take someone.

So its very very important that we reveal this well.

It started off as a project to reveal the ocean to the world.

Google is a critical partner for us. Cause there's no real point to doing the science unless you

do the engagement and get people aware of what's actually happening underwater.

We've seen a 50% droppping in coral coverage over the last 50 years. So, if we want to do something about what's going on in the oceans,

we really need to take people virtual diving.

We counted probably around 50 sea lions. So there were...it was almost like a big ball of sea lions around it.

It's probably about 6:30 in the morning and we are about to take the trekker out and attach it to the front of the boat and

collect some of the shoreline of the Plaza Islands.

We're hoping to help the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Park Service

get validation data and imagery to really prove

what kind of vegetation, what kind of birds are in certain areas of the islands.

This morning's dive will be a very interesting dive because Galapagos is famous for its currents and

really we don't know what to expect so you can get some really vicious currents coming around sea mounts etc. and over the top,

and even pushing you down. So you gotta be very careful on these kind of dives

especially when you're in very deep water.

Today, we're heading to Mosquera, which is a sandbar between the island of Santa Cruz and the island of Baltra.

Well, we're here at the horse base camp and we're about to go up to the top of the crater.

It's a pity that it's cloudy now because otherwise if it's open, it would be an amazing view,

but let's see if we are lucky and later maybe we have some sun. Please!

Well, about 5 minutes ago it was completely clear. There was no fog, you could see the

steam, you could see the sulfur. You could see all the lava. How does it look up there?

Yeah, I hear you loud and clear. It's amazing. Geologists will love us for the years to come!