Random question about the appearance of water on google earth

[Badfish740]

When using google earth at work (my laptop can't handle it ) I notice that a lot of the water features (lakes, rivers, creeks, etc...) show up very dark. However some show up as a brilliant sky blue-why is that? The ones that are very blue seem like they may be gravel pits or otherwise man made. Is it because they have a different bottom composition/depth?

 

[Hewey]

I think it might have to do with mineral content.

 

[Boyd]

I'm pretty sure this is false coloring which is triggered by some sort of conditions (such as the way the light reflects offt he surface), since as you note it doesn't seem to be very consistent and most small bodies of water appear to be black.

 

[uuglypher]

When using google earth at work (my laptop can't handle it ) I notice that a lot of the water features (lakes, rivers, creeks, etc...) show up very dark. However some show up as a brilliant sky blue-why is that? The ones that are very blue seem like they may be gravel pits or otherwise man made. Is it because they have a different bottom composition/depth?

I've only seen Google Earth images a few times - my iMac can't handle it, gotta use my wife's (shudder) PC* - and observed the same thing about water. My best guess was that it was related to the angle of the sun when each image was recorded and, since they weren't all recorded on the same day and at the same time, the difference in the incidence angle of sunlight relative to the angle of observation (optical axis of the camera) probably accounted for the phenomenon.

Any other ideas?

*as my wife says: "Your Mac can't HANDLE the TRUTH!!"

Dave