Google goes goggles offering virtual Great Barrier Reef tour

Wonderful and beautiful underwater world with corals and tropical fish.

Google has given travellers goggles, as the street view goes off road and underwater mapping parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

You can dive parts of the World Heritage-listed marine park from your desk at work thanks to a team of scientists who have created a specially designed underwater camera capable of capturing 360-degree images of the Reef.

The project to map the reef is part of the Catlin Seaview Survey, launched at Monterey, California, and scientists will spend the next three years compiling a visual record of the worlds reefs that will be explorable by everyone via Google Maps.

With 99.95 percent of people unable to scuba dive, it allows so many people to access the oceans for the very first time. Project founder and director Richard Vevers said the images would open up the reef to the world.

Just three sections around Lady Elliot, Heron and Wilson Islands have been mapped so far, but by the end of December scientists will have completed surveys on 20 sections of the 2300km long reef. There is a team in the Coral Sea at the moment doing three 2km surveys a day.

“It’s very much a critical time for reefs and we want to cover as much as we can in the next two to three years to create a global record,” Vevers said.

Vevers said there was already massive world wide interest with more than 1.4 million people following the project via Google Plus.

Reefs in Hawaii and the Philippines will be mapped next year.

Get your Google goggles on and explore the following reefs:

Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef – http://goo.gl/maps/3mPy0

Lady Elliot Island, GBR: Dive in – http://goo.gl/kDcLN

Apo Island, Philippines: Dive in – http://goo.gl/maps/mfYjU

Oahu, Hawaii: Hanauma Bay: Dive in – http://goo.gl/maps/105bi

Maui, Hawaii, Molokini Crater: Dive in – http://goo.gl/maps/dRAk7

Wilson Island, Great Barrier Reef: Dive in – http://goo.gl/maps/sluiY

 

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