Relevant sound is something that we don’t often experience when researching a location on the web. Whether it be by Flickr, Google Earth, Virtual Earth or 43Places it is a silent experience. Bernie Krause of Wild Sanctuary (turn down your speakers) has the largest private collection of soundscapes in the world. Each one is date-stamped and geotagged. At the Where 2.0 conference on Tuesday he released KML files that can be consumed via Google Maps and Google Earth. The KML hacking was done by 30Proof.
Bernie and his wife have traveled the world and have used their collections and skills for research projects. A project from 2003 is An Analysis of Snowmobile Noise in Yellowstone National Park. During his talk he demonstrated the damage that logging had done to a wilderness area. The difference wasn’t apparent on the map, but was very evident when listening to the soundscape.