U.s. Department Of The Interior?

[+bicknell]

While in Shenandoah today looking for benchmarks some friendly locals who helped us find one pointed us to this mark at the school. It's not on our list, or geocaching.com for that matter. One of many in that state. The locals were very interested in more information, and I have an e-mail to send them my notes. Anyone know of a way to look these up and get some info?

 

 

 

 

[evenfall]

Bicknell,

 

The US Dept. of the Interior is the parent agency of the USGS, just like the US Dept. of Commerce is the parent agency of NOAA and NGS.

 

So you have found a Transit Traverse Disc Belonging to the USGS, But you found it in one of the USGS's Unusual disc settings.

 

If you want the Data, It is available via the USGS. Please feel free to email them and ask.

 

Nice find! Sorry it isn't in the database,

 

Rob

[+bicknell]

In part answering my own question, here's a USGS contact:

 

USGS Contact Thread

 

Here's some related information:

 

How to get 7.5 minute quads from the USGS

 

I'm going to drop him a note, and see if I can both report this find, and get some more

information.

[evenfall]

Bicknell,

 

Quads are those big Topographic Maps that the USGS sells. Those are cool but not what you are looking for exactly.

 

Write and ask for the data to this station, Give them location in Degrees Minutes and Seconds, as that is standard survey format, and the city state info as will as what the stamping says. If you are emailing, Offer a Link to a Photo you have stored online. Don't email the photo though as their email system may not like it, Virus wise.

 

Good Luck,

 

Rob

[Z15]

If you know the USGS Quadrangle map name, they can relate it to the location.

 

As said, important info to provide when seeking info;

 

1/ Whats all stamped on the disk, not whats cast into the surface

2/ The Latitude and Longitude in degrees minutes seconds of the location , approx.

3/ State is located in

4/ Quad Map name if known

[+bicknell]

The USGS got back to me:

 

Thank you for your inquiry in regards for Bench Mark Control. Bench

mark recovery report for mark TT 14 FHK 1962. Located on 15'

Quadrangle 187VA. This is a horizontal control mark:

Shenandoah; at Shenandoah Elementary School; 42 ft W. of U.S. Highway

340; 16 ft N. of main entrance to school; in N. end of concrete

retaining wall; standard tablet stamped "TT 14 FHK 1962"

X = 1,965,221

Y = 298,215

Latitude = 38 29 07.87

Longitude = 78 37 17.40

North American Datum of 1927

No vertical control on this mark; so there isn't an elevation

available.

 

I sent them a reply to formally mark it as recovered, the description is pretty good. I also encouraged them to have someone sign up here and see what we're up to, hopefully to help encourage them to get the USGS marks online.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

It's interesting that the horizontal coordinates are seconds with 2 decimal points instead of 5, like with NGS adjusted coordinates. Also they're still using the 1927 datum - apparently they aren't re-adjusting their stations with newer datums (probably a result of the lack of a computer database for them?).

[+bicknell]

Well, I have a new contact:

 

Mary Fone

U.S. Geological Survey

1400 Independence Road, MS231

Rolla, MO 65401

E-mail: mfone@usgs.gov

Phone: 573-308-3609

 

She was extremely helpful. They can provide 7.5 minute or 15 minute quads with the marks on them, and state index of the quads. They have no online indexes, it sounds like even internally. She talked of actually getting file folders and making notes in them. No real plans to put anything online at this time either.

 

She'll take recovery reports and make notes in the files, and can give you the descriptions they have for a mark if you know it's desigation (which you can get from the quads).

 

She seemed to be aware "geocachers" were finding marks, but didn't seem to know the magnitude of people searching for benchmarks directly. I chatted up what we do and encouraged them to have someone from the USGS lurk, if nothing else.

 

So, we found the mark, and that's about all there is to say about that.

[+bicknell]

Wow, this is interesting. So I had the nice USGS lady fax me some info in my local area. I got back two greatly reduced 15 minute quads (so they fit on normal paper), and some descriptions. Typed descriptions. Clearly old school typewriter.

 

The quads have lines drawn on them, each line is numbered with arrows for which direction they went. The description then is the benchmarks one by one along the line. The descriptions are more or less standard fair from the NGS, however they assume you are following the line (eg, they don't independantly go back to the to-reach point). There are numerous NGS tie ins, the first set of 12 lines hits 37 USGS marks and 22 NGS marks (note, RM's count separately here regardless of PID). Of interest, that means in the quad with my house there are 37 USGS marks, and from a quick look I'd say most are not in the NGS database (none I've spot checked so far are in the database).

 

With each mark is a height only (for the benchmarks along the lines, obviously triangulation stations have different detail), no lat long at all. The first quad seems to have no lat long for the marks at all, the second quad as a supplemental at the end which has lat and long for about 90% of the marks. I presume these are read from a map.

 

So, lots more marks to find. Lots more old descriptions to figure out. A bit harder with no coordinates to start with, in some cases. That said, if these are all typewritten pages in file folders the data processing tasks are at best slower, and at worst much more complex.

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

Thats where I use the Interactive State Series TOPO's from National Geographic.

You can get the coordinates for the marks by merely clicking a waypoint on the X.

,for the Benchmark in question.

 

I too have recieved the Old school type written documents for my surrounding 4 Quads.

Most of these are older than or as old as dirt.

Mostly chisled squares on culverts and bedrock.

A few Disc and stones as well.