After you've clicked on a placemark link, Google Earth will open and a marvelous image of the planet will spin to find the site and zoom in. Before flying in Google Earth, turn on the GE Community and Terrain layers; you'll find a series of layers in the left hand menu. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in closer or farther away. Click and drag to move the map east or west, north or south. Tilt the image or spin the globe by using the cross-compass in the upper right hand corner.
Placemarkers added by Google Earth users are indicated by an icon such as a yellow thumbtack. Click on an 'i' icon for detailed information, ground-level photos or further links for information. A blue-and-white cross indicates a ground level photograph. Some of the links take you to part of a Wikipedia entry. Users can also integrate data and media with geographic location in GE. For some Eastern Woodlands mound groups, Jacobs utilized his own GPS readings, linking online photography in the appropriate placemarks, and adding overlay placemarks with old Squier and Davis survey maps to display mounds now destroyed in their place.
If you really get ambitious, sign up for a Google Earth Community account and read their guidelines. Placemarks you contribute will appear on Google Earth when they update. There is a fairly steep learning curve to understanding how to add placemarks, but it can be done. More details on how to use Google Earth can be found at Google Earth on About, from About's guide to Google Marziah Karch, or JQ's Ancient Placemarkers page, or About's Space guide Nick Greene's Google Earth page.
