[Missouri River Commission Triangulation Stations]

Thanks for all the replies. I was finally able to track down which station it is I found. A gentleman from the Corps of Engineers helped me. I emailed NGS to submit a recovery for it, but they told me they are unable to track these types of markers. But I did add a waymark for it on Waymarking: http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WMKPYK_MORC_Tri_Station_Hamburg

 

Also, occurred to me to mention that you will probably be unable to obtain 'location information' in the sense of latitude and longitude for the P.B.M.s (the leveling stations) in most cases, at least without later information (NGS or USGS data). The measurements simply weren't made. It should be possible, though, to 'figure out' their general location based on the given information in most cases, once you have found a member of the line. For this, I noticed while looking through these that the annual reports of the various division engineers usually discuss the field work in their district and give useful information that isn't in the index. There are tables and tables and tables...

 

I have the "Descriptions and elevations of bench marks on the Missouri River" that describes the locations of the bench marks when they were placed. It's pretty funny to read the descriptions. They reference the stations, which is why I am really interested to get the PID of the station I found.

 

For some fun, I'm gonna go out on the river bank tomorrow and, using the descriptions, see if I can locate any bench marks.

 

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3076864;view=1up;seq=571

 

This is the exact link to the station descriptions for the triangulation stations in Missouri.

 

The area was surveyed in 1924 by the USGS. What is the 'modern' St. Charles 7.5x7.5 Quadrangle was published in two sections...

 

North Bank: http://ims.er.usgs.gov/gda_services/download?item_id=5580220

South Bank: http://ims.er.usgs.gov/gda_services/download?item_id=5580220

 

Triangulation Station CHARBONNIER is visible in the upper right of the south bank image, near the map border. According to Google Maps, it's located on the hill directly above the St. Stanislaus Conservation Area in Hazelwood, and by my eyeball it should be around 1000 feet west of the transmission tower. When driving along Aubuchon Road after passing Teson (going east) you should be looking almost exactly in the right direction.

 

According to the 1954 map, if you go to the location of the transmission tower (access from the end of Old Charbonnier Road), where the road turns just south of the tower there should be the remains of an old road leading off into the woods, and the station will be not far off the 'road' to the left.

 

The station doesn't have a NGS datasheet, so I don't have exact coords, but 38.815N 90.391W should put you within a few hundred feet.

[Missouri River Commission Triangulation Stations]

Also, occurred to me to mention that you will probably be unable to obtain 'location information' in the sense of latitude and longitude for the P.B.M.s (the leveling stations) in most cases, at least without later information (NGS or USGS data). The measurements simply weren't made. It should be possible, though, to 'figure out' their general location based on the given information in most cases, once you have found a member of the line. For this, I noticed while looking through these that the annual reports of the various division engineers usually discuss the field work in their district and give useful information that isn't in the index. There are tables and tables and tables...

 

I have the "Descriptions and elevations of bench marks on the Missouri River" that describes the locations of the bench marks when they were placed. It's pretty funny to read the descriptions. They reference the stations, which is why I am really interested to get the PID of the station I found.

 

For some fun, I'm gonna go out on the river bank tomorrow and, using the descriptions, see if I can locate any bench marks.

[Missouri River Commission Triangulation Stations]

Thanks revent!

 

It doesn't appear to have a datasheet on the NGS. I called them and they got me a contact with the MO Dept of Agri. I called them and they are going to search their offline sources for any information.

 

While this doesn't provide a list of the benchmarks, I found this article on the subject to be pretty interesting...among many other details, describes the numbering method.

 

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_Penry-MissouriRiverCommisionSurvey_Vol10No6.pdf

 

Since these weren't placed by the NGS, they will only be in the NGS database (and geocaching's copy) if they were later located and used by the NGS or it's predecessor. The easiest way to hunt these is with the "NGS Data Explorer" at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/NGSDataExplorer/

 

Note that this website has a bug (invalid site certificate) and while most links to it are to the "https" version, it only works correctly when opened without encryption (http). What would be most useful for what you want, I think, would be to load the radius around a location, and then switch to list view and look at the names, which for these marks are apparently things like "17 CAP", "17 BOLT", and so on...

 

This is an example of the datasheet for one of the marks you are interested in. Given their age, most have probably had the aboveground marks damaged or destroyed at some point, but the belowground marks should still normally be intact unless there has been construction in the area, as they are apparently pretty deep.

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=JC0135

 

If you browse the descriptions, it shouldn't be incredibly hard to find the one you discovered, "if" it's in the NGS database.

 

There is also a page (with photos) about the ones located in Nebraska here http://www.penryfamily.com/surveying/morcmain.html

Especially worth looking at is this one, lol... http://www.penryfamily.com/surveying/morcbm109-3.html

 

Brownie points for adding these as waymarks also, and EXTRA brownie points for submitting a recovery report to the NGS on their website here... http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl

 

I have found triangulation stations that were obviously in active use (brand new marker post for nearby road construction, or a recently dug 2 foot deep hole) that had not been reported to the NGS for decades.... in one case the 'pasture' described in the notes had 40 foot trees in it, so take older descriptions with a grain of salt, and please update them if needed.

[Missouri River Commission Triangulation Stations]

Thanks Shirley. The station isn't on GC. There's no NGS datasheet on it. It doesn't appear to have been sumitted to NGS.

 

I'll probably log it on GC once there's an NGS datasheet, assuming there will be.

 

Go here - HC0135 to the benchmark page on GC.com and then scroll down to click on nearest benchmarks. That page and all the pages listed at the bottom of that page will show all of the benchmarks in that general area and the coordinates.

 

You are welcome.

 

Shirley~

 

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[Missouri River Commission Triangulation Stations]

Does any documentation exists that lists all the triangulation stations placed by the Missouri River Commission? I have the "Descriptions and Elevations of Bench Marks on the Missouri River", which lists all the bench marks and references the triangulation stations. It only references the triangulation stations by number but doesn't provide a list of their locations.

 

I accidentally found a MORC triangulation station and I wanted to figure out which one it is and possibly locate bench marks near it that reference it. the one I found is in St. Charles, Missouri.

 

Thank you,

Chris