A Prime Slice Before Thanksgiving

Just a few days away from Thanksgiving, it's time to take a look at a little slice of the earth.  The Prime Meridian is the ugly step child of the equator.  It's the go to longitudinal line, unappreciated for no other reason than our perception of up and down in the universe. 

Ultimately the reason for this post is my frustration with Google's decision to not allow exports of the great elevation profiles in Google Earth. I realize they own a certain amount of the "rights" to it, but at the same time, it seems like one of those things you shouldn't be able to own, you know, the moon, earth elevation profiles...Antarctica.

I took a slice on near the Prime Meridian (give or take a couple minutes each way) starting on the north shore of the UK and extending to the southern shore of Ghana.  I guess I think this elevation profile is cool because, when dealing with such a long line, you can really "see" things.  Starting with the relatively flat lands over England, extending to the Pyrenees near the border of France and Spain (and Andorra), we then see the fall off into the Mediterranean which jumps up to the Algerian edge of the Atlas mountains and finally falling off across the Sahara and across the ol' Volta.

So that's one way of looking at it...here's another:

Simple, yes...but still pretty cool.