Hazard Map

This map comes from google earth, and has the earthquake layer turned on. Now not necessarily a government hazard map, this map shows you that the area around Mammoth Mountain is a hazardous area to ski in due to all of the earth quakes in the area. Since google earth is free, anyone can go lookup a place and see if it is highly active in geological terms, or if the area has a lot of seismographs. This would be interesting to see if people turned this layer on more often and if google updated it more often if people would avoid certain areas because they can look the area up on google earth and see if there are any major hazards reported in the area.

You could also turn this map into a printed hazard map rather easily, but it works better on being online. Maybe someone could print it and hang it up in one of the ski lodges near mammoth or in the community center and see if people go to google earth more often to see what all the dots mean and when the earthquakes occurred. It would defiantly raise awareness to tourist who do not know much about the area and give them a sense of how active the area is. It is for people to know that the area they area currently skiing or visiting is highly active and has many problems that come with being an active geological zone. But it still would be interesting to see if google got more hits than normal for the Mammoth mountain area if someone were to post this map near a lodge or in one.

Old Map/New Map

This old 1868 map of Reno has seen better times, but at least it is still around in a large chunk. This map gives you a good of the center of town just across the Truckee River, but is missing a piece of the upper left and the right side past the Reno name. I thought this map put all of the buildings and streets in a nice classic square that is easy to see. The buildings have first of all letters then numbers, which means this was part of a larger series of maps. I thought it was interesting how stylized the Reno name was on this map, something not often seen on a map that was probably updated every year or so since this was made during the Comstock Boom. Also in the upper right remnants of the drawings of the buildings can still be seen, but the numbers and letters have worn off, making it seem like an unfinished product instead of worn.
The newer image is from Google Earth with the street layer turned on. I tried to zoom to the same height to get the shot to make them sort of match up, but found that the google image would not size right. Anyway you can see how the older map differs from the new satellite photo of the same area. An interesting note is that the cartography from the 1868 made the Truckee River seem like the Mississippi River just from the size he drew! In the older map you can also see the old ditch that used to supply water to someones ranch or farm. This is interesting since that the area where it would be on Google is now paved over with streets and houses. Now I don't know if it is a change in the river or the cartographer didn't get the shape right but it seems that the shape of the river has changed since 1868. this can be seen from the old map to the Google map.

News Maps

The first thing I noticed about the news maps that I viewed is that they are rather simple maps that have a few key features. First of these features is that the all have a background of simplified geological mountains, such as the ranges you see to the right. They usually don't have an over-bearing existence and are more of a backdrop to what is being shown.
Next in line is that news maps also show the surrounding countries, which gives the average viewer a look at the names off these countries such as Turkmenistan, not a commonly seen country. Now if people really paid attention to these little details they would soon be able to know what countries surround said country and hopefully know the generally location on a globe. What I like most about this particular map is how the bordering countries names are in a smaller font than the country we are focused on. It makes the main country more important, but also allows you to see who borders this country.
The last item that I found about most news maps is that they always have the capital off the country listed in a prominent font, with all the other cities in a slightly smaller font. The one thing I would like to see are that the bordering countries have their capitals listed as well. They would not have to be in a large font as the main country, but to have them there may give the average viewer a better geographical lesson than they would otherwise get. The do list the bordering seas and gulfs of the countries they focus in on, but maybe they could also put major mountain ranges since they find the oceans important? Just a thought that I would like put out there and see what others think about it.