Ocean in Google Earth project allows users to examine wildlife, mountains, shipwrecks and environmental changes

For the past three years, Google Earth has given its hundreds of millions of users a way to explore, tag and discover the surface of our planet. Well, the land parts at least.

Today, Google completes the picture of the world by adding into its popular software the oceans, which cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface. Ocean in Google Earth will let users dive below the surface of the water to examine wildlife, mountains and shipwrecks in this murky world.

To help users understand what they are looking at, Google has assembled a coalition of more than 80 organisations, including the National Geographic Society, BBC and the Marine Conservation Society, to provide images, video and analysis in regularly-updated "layers" of information added to Google's basic mapping technology.

Users will be able to track the movements of animals in the sea, view marine protected areas and even keep up to date on which fish species are good choices if you want to eat sustainably in a particular region of the world.

"With this latest version of Google Earth, you can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet's surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world's oceans that cover almost three quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions of this magical experience," said the former American vice-president, Al Gore, at the launch of the new version of Google Earth in San Fransisco.

Guardian.co.uk