Earth Matters

January Puzzler Answer: Royal Gardens subdivision

January 25th, 2013 by Adam Voiland

We thought the January puzzler would be tough, but it sure didn’t take Ron Schott long to solve it.  We posted the puzzler at 12:56 a.m. Eastern (U.S.) time on January 21; a mere hour-and-thirty-four minutes later Ron posted the correct answer: the Royal Gardens subdivision in Hawaii. (Jeesh, Ron, don’t you sleep?)  Ron is a professor of geology at Bakersfield College and a veteran of Where on Google Earth (WOGE), so we’re not particularly surprised he was so quick.  WOGE even has a rule named after him.  The “Schott Rule” states that you have to wait an hour for each win you have before posting. For now, we’re going to go with something slightly simpler for the puzzler: if you’ve won in the past, please wait a day before answering.

You can read more about what the puzzler image showed in Saturday’s Image of the Day.  Plus, special for the blog, see the video above of Jack Thompson evacuating Royal Gardens just prior to lava flowing over his property.

4 Responses to “January Puzzler Answer: Royal Gardens subdivision”

  1. Ron Schott says:

    Thanks for the kind words, but I need to point out that you linked to the wrong Where on (Google) Earth competition. The one you linked to is run by geographers, but the one I’ve spent far too much time dominating has a geologic theme and no official homepage (though Felix Bossert runs an unofficial clearinghouse for the geological version of WoGE here: http://woge-felix.blogspot.com/).

    Oh, and I promise to be more patient in the future. 😉

    • Adam Voiland says:

      Whoops, you’re right. I’ve subbed in the correct link to Felix’s page. Thanks for pointing that out.

  2. Felix Bossert says:

    Congratulations Ron!

    So what do we have here. This looks promising. Now in the morning, I can try to find the geographical WoGE, in the afternoon the geological and at night EarthObservatory’s satellite view 😉 . I think we should declare the first one, to have solved all three competitions at the same time, as the Super Champion. ….