Z15

I read the description and got the impression that the stone replaces the redwood posts with tacks. It doesn't specify that it holds a position, but the question is why drill a hole and fill it and put a triangle around the hole and closely describe its position, if it doesn't hold a position. We have found several marks that have surface stones with no markings that are used to cover and protect the marks (disks), but they are unmarked stones and not noted in the description. John if that's the case i shouldn't disturb it ... i was thinking of getting a pik of the underground mark thnx Term "Tied off" I read to mean the original location was referenced somehow (off-set stakes etc), a new underground mark set and a surface mark consisting of a stone with drill hole and copper wire at the original location It does hold a position, both the undergound dsk and the surface stone are at original position. So do not remove or disturb the surface mark (stone) or you will be destroying the station.

I was travelling US Hwy 2 between Hurley and Ashland Wisconsin on June 6th and observed a level crew along the roadway. They had Survey crew signs out for miles, 3 men on ATV's with stobe lights and farther down the road I saw several white vehicles parked along a side road, big trailer, trucks. I was wondering if anyone saw that or knew who is was? Wis DOT, NGS,?? Looked like a well funded operation with all the new looking vehicles and equipment. I wondered the purpose as there is NGS level run all along that route done in 1985 if I recall and I spotted old orange posts and they did not have ribbon flagging them which is typical. The traffic was kind heavy at the time I was passing and no safe place to stop and ask so I keep on trucking. The way they had the signing laid out was similar to the way NGS did when they leveled up here in 1996, Survey crew sign about every mile for many miles.

No. They were placed by the contractor who built the road under the direction of the state highway project engineer. It was a pay item and mandated on projects where federal $ were involved. That practice has long since been abandoned (back in the 70's) as a project requirement. The locations were surveyed by the project engineers stake out crews but rarely did anyone check on the contractor that he placed it in the correct location, close enough was good enough back then. We only used them as evidence but never accepted them as gospel as we found many that were out of place from 1ft to several ft. Sometimes even property owners moved them and those suckers are heavy and about 4-6 ft long. They were to be set so the back or a back corner was on the row. They were supposed to be on the ROW so the property owner could not claim ownership of the monument. Some property owners had surveyors come in and prove it was on their property so they could remove them as an eyesore. We came upon one owner who had about a 1/2 mile of road frontage and pulled everyone out with his tractor because he hit one once making hay. You could see them pilled up in his rock pile.

Role reversal

Precisely, trust the paper you have in front of you, not what you find on line.

I would assume it cannot be made public by NGS. Maybe the state does not want it published for whatever reason, its thier money that was used or it was contracted out and there is some legal reason it cannot be made available, courts, private claims. Maybe some kind of agreement or dispute to the information, political?

NGS and USGS etc do not have the resources ($ and people) to travel all over to repair or replace marks. In each state they have a Geodetic Advisor who can delegate local resources to preserve the mark. I know when I was with the State DOT we often were asked to go check on a mark, relocate it or mark it so it does not get disturbed. While ou Survey section gladly did this, our higher ups did not want to authorize funds for this so we had the do it without asking or telling them. So if you really are concerned, go to the NGS website and find the NGS State Advisor and contact him/her with your concerns. Be it a NGS, USGS or NOS mark, he will be concerned and might have someone in the area he can count on who can go there and assess the situation.

I agree. It should be noted that underground mark is not always the same type as the surface mark. For instance, we found where someone actually dug out the underground mark looking for it and they did not even realize it because they assumed it was a disk. We went there to reestablish the postion as part of one of our surveys and found the underground mark among stones piled around the mark. They thought it was just another rock in the ground. We had the USFS notes as to the field work done. Btw-UG mark was a copper bolt set in a a round piece of concrete that really looked like a rock and the bolt was not visible at first glance but experience of the NGS advisor cautioned us to be aware of that. Another thing about UG marks, they are RARELY as deep as they are supposed to be. Seems some field workers were lazy and dug a hole shallow. We found an a uprooted post once that was only about 30 inches long and the desc had it 6 or 8 inces about goung, we found the mark about 2 ft below the surface. So its easy to dig up if you are unaware of these things, that took many yrs experience to learn. Leave the UG mark there.

Thats what is called a Monument Box. Its used for any type of survey marker place in the roadway in Michigan. As a matter of fact I set hundreds of them while I was at the DOT, I hate them, they are cast iron and heavy,+/- 40lbs??. Most that are on centerline are highway alingment points though and I would say 95% of what you find are highway alignment points. Contractors are required to place them on all Highway projects. You won't find monunment inside like the pic, could be anything from a plane pin to a licensed surveyors cap. Only the box is standardized, not what you want to use for the mark. MDOT Standard Specifications

Many years ago (20+) I found a USGS mark like that, we had to reset it due to road construction, it had been set in a huge surface boulder. I would assume whomever set the mark never had the dies. No photo ever taken of it.

We used these copper clad rods at the Michigan state DOT for the 30 yrs I worked there (72-02). We mostly used them for property corners, sections corners etc that were replaced on road construction. The state had a never ending supply of them, they were originally planned to mark Right of Way but they (FHWA) stopped requiring the ROW be marked in the 70's. The rods came with a cap like in the pic and w/o. The ones w/o a cap we used in our cast iron boxes in the roadways to monuments c/l alignment. As I recall the ones we used came in 18-ich and 24-inch length. The pic with the cap a beat up is what happened when beat into the ground with a mall.

fyi........here is a few that were set here, there are a few more

Here is the story ----REPORT FROM KEWEENAW BAY STAND-OFF excerpt

RL0057 STATION RECOVERY (1997) RL0057 RL0057'RECOVERY NOTE BY MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 1997 (SHN) THE RL0057'MARK WAS ON PROPERTY OF THE KEWEENAW BAY TRIBE OF THE OJIBWA INDIANS. RL0057'THE BUILDING THE MARK WAS IN WAS TOTALLY DEMOLISHED 2/97 AND ALL THAT RL0057'REMAINS IS A MASS OF RUBBLE. IT APPEARS THE MARK HAS BEEN DESTROYED RL0057'NOTE--DUE TO ARMED HOSTILITIES (1995-96) AT THIS LOCATION, PERMISSION RL0057'TO VISIT THE SITE IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

The poor survey crew.. they already had one foot in the grave! (I did not, by the way, recover this reference mark. Would have been nice if there was a NAME associated with grave #102. All the graves I searched did not have a station disk in it. However - if there's ANY survey crew out there that wants to put a marker in my headstone, feel free. I'd be honored!) This reminds me of a story a co-worker told me about his first day on the job on a Michigan DOT survey crew back in the 1970's. He reported to the Regional office on Monday AM and went thru new employee processing. Several hours of this the office manager told him he would be working with the local Project Development Survey crew who was out working in the area. So she contacted the Survey Chief (boss of crew) and advised him to come and pickup his new employee. About 30 min later one of the crew technicians showed up and he left with him. It was a 15 mile drive to the work site and the tech was filling him in on things. As they approached the work area signs along road he saw no one in the road working as he had expected. Then the driver turned left into this cemetery drive at this big curve in the road and that's when he saw a short guy with a long scraggly beard in worn out army type jacket with a shovel digging a hole in the ground. The other guy was very tall and had headphones on (metal locator) and he looked similarly dressed in worn old clothing. He was surprised when the truck stopped at these men. Turns out the guy in the beard was the surveyor and they were trying to locate the "Point of Intersection" (PI) of the curve tangents that was set circa 1950. Needless to say he was a little taken aback on his first day on the job digging holes in cemetery but the PI ended up being found in that hole they were digging. Every time I heard him tell the story everyone would be laughing for the rest of the day it was so funny. Btw - This guy had previously worked as a corrections guard in a state minimum security prison and he thought nothing could get more strange then what he experienced on that job but he first day on the survey crew came close.

fyi

Easy find

If the mark was located on a building or bridge that has been entirely demolished, should it be logged as Destroyed or Not Found? Not Found Re SG0052 HISTORY - 19960717 MARK NOT FOUND NGS SG0052 STATION RECOVERY (1996) SG0052 SG0052'RECOVERY NOTE BY NATIONAL GEODETIC SURVEY 1996 (GAS) SG0052'THE BUILDING HAS BEEN RAZED. ASSUMED DESTROYED. Here an example of a mark not found but should be there as the building still is. We looked and looked for this same mark prior to NGS with same results. SG0056 HISTORY - 19960709 MARK NOT FOUND NGS SG0056 SG0056 STATION DESCRIPTION SG0056 SG0056'DESCRIBED BY NATIONAL GEODETIC SURVEY 1934 SG0056'AT HANCOCK. SG0056'AT HANCOCK, HOUGHTON COUNTY, IN THE SECTION OF THE CITY KNOWN AS SG0056'RIPLEY, ON PORTAGE LAKE, AT THE HOUGHTON COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION BRICK SG0056'OFFICE BUILDING, AT THE EXTREME SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE SANDSTONE SG0056'WATER TABLE, AND ON THE CENTER OF THE BEVEL. A CHISELED CUT. SG0056 SG0056 STATION RECOVERY (1996) SG0056 SG0056'RECOVERY NOTE BY NATIONAL GEODETIC SURVEY 1996 (GAS) SG0056'A THOROUGH SEARCH REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF THE MARK.

Normally property owners are not listed on survey marks, not to say it never been done but it would be unusual. Lines/marks on the survey disk indicate where the corner(s) are located along said lines. Find a map of the location/survey and they will correspond to the map. The Professional Surveyor/Firm may place their name/state professional registration number on survey marks along with property location identification.

That's my opinion also. Lieberg is the name of the Licensed surveyor or firm and LS 20800148 is his state registration number. Usually they one put their LS number on a legal property corner and not likely on some temp point as it then could be misconstrued as something it may not be.

That style disk was used as part of the WPA work in the 1930's. Read this report, in the contents you want the "History of the Local Control Surveys Project" https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2spwGyJdPXHM2RkZmVhOGEtNzRlZi00ZTFjLTllNGEtY2FhMjljYWE3NWY3&hl=en&authkey=CKWq0pcP

Thanks Z15. That confirms my thoughts that the reset from 1970 was using a recycled disk, if the WPA types were set out in the 30's.....and helps explain the low fine. fyi This doc summarizes work done in all states..who was in charge etc https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2spwGyJdPXHYzU5Y2JhZTYtOTdlMy00ODRmLTlhNjEtYWUwNTlmNjE3NjZl&hl=en&authkey=CNv2kKwO About midway thru this next doc they discuss the WPA projects https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2spwGyJdPXHM2RkZmVhOGEtNzRlZi00ZTFjLTllNGEtY2FhMjljYWE3NWY3&hl=en&authkey=CKWq0pcP

Those 2 bottom disks types were placed in every state just about as part of the WPA funding in the 30's. Lots of them were set around where I live.

A great many of the USGS survey markers are not in any electronic database. They exist on paper in USGS archives. You would need to contact the USGS office serving your area and provide them with all the stamping (not cast into) on the mark, the state, general location i.e highway, location name, GPS or scaled coordinates are most important as that is how they are filed. They would not likely care about saving the mark but would update their records and provide you with information on the mark if so requested. Fyi - The "2" is the mark number in the series and the "HJH" would be the survey crew leaders initials, he was know as Chief of Party.

Not only rerouted but it could be in the same location but the hills and curves may have been flattened and thus the mileage would get shorter or longer. Having worked for the DOT and having access to plans and ROW maps I have seen this many times. For instance; one road in my area is completely different from its 1948 location but in the same general location and the junction used in 1948 was moved 1/2 mile farther along the intersection route. If you did not have old maps or plans you might not be able to tell from out in the field as things changed in 1955. Even the USGS could not locate some marks because instead of 3.5 miles they would now 3.2 miles, instead of 60 ft from C/L as in 1948 it was now 160 ft from the existing C/L. You have to put yourself in past and using Google maps or anything on the computer is often not accurate to the extent you expect it to be. You are better off using paper USGS maps. We use to use Delorme Topo quads loaded into my laptop plugged into a differential Garmin GPS and I often found the plotted location on the computer map to be completely off the location on the ground. The location on the map screen (software) would place the mark on low ground when you new it was 1/8th miles away on the hill where the map screen showed a triangle. Most of the time the computer maps are only accurate to a certain magnification and if you zoom in it goes all out of wack.