Maps elsewhere: Visualizing the Gulf oil spill

A colleague points out a much better version of the map we linked to earlier letting you visualize the size of the Gulf oil spill elsewhere in the world. This iteration detects your IP address and generates a map for your location (or the address of your ISP) automatically.

The map is also a good teaching tool for how the Mercator projection distorts area. The difference between a shape of the same size at our latitude and Louisiana's is visible at left - try putting in quito ecuador and inuvik nwt to see a much more extreme contrast.