A planet full of WoGE

In celebration of the first anniversary of Where on (Google) Earth, I decided to have a quick look at the locations the geoblogospheroids have chosen for this highly successful quiz meme.

Below is a pie chart of the area of continents and major islands.

Compare this to the distribution of WoGE sites:

As you can see, Asia and Africa are under-represented, Antarctica is badly under-represented, while North America, Europe, and small islands are over-represented.

But there is more to geology than surface area. Below is the breakdown by tectonic regime (using the USGS plate boundary kmz file):

While “craton” here incorrectly includes the deforming interiors of several continents (Asia, Africa, North America), I’m still surprised that more sites weren’t close to active margins.