Poor or Destroyed

[+Red_Cedars]

I recently searched and found a station mark and two of its reference marks. All three disks have their own PIDs in the database (I love finding this type). Problem is, one of the RMs is well out of place. The monument is still in the poured concrete base material, but this station is in the corner of a farmer's field and this disk looks to have been broken off and replaced badly. The concrete base is broken off about a foot deep and is placed back in the hole, but is severly tilted and the arrow on the mark is pointing the wrong direction. So, just how "poor" does a mark have to be in order to be considered "destroyed"?

 

Thoughts?

 

R_C

[foxtrot_xray]

In my thoughts, if this was my mark, I'd label them RM as poor, not destroyed. I will only mark it as destroyed when it is, in fact, missing. (I've found a few - usually the tops of the cement bases are chopped off, or ripped up..)

 

I only have one that I'm torn about - and that's a disk that's supposd to be mounted in a building that no longer exists. Someone previousl marked it 'Not Found', but not destroyed.

 

Oh, and if there's an underground mark referenced, and the surface mark IS destroyed, I won't mark it as destroyed, because crews could still use the underground mark.

 

But, that's me. There are others here that are much more 'professional' than I am in hunting these things.

Edited January 24, 2008 by foxtrot_xray

[lost02]

I would say if the top foot of the monument was broken off I would take pictures of the top half broken off and laying on its side on the ground and send them to Deb. I’ve seen a number of marks like this and she usually marks them as Destroyed. If the monument that is still in the ground has evidence of the drill hole, or the disk is still monumented, it may be poor if it is only tilted slightly.

 

If a monument has been broken off and someone just plops the broken monument back in the ground I don’t believe it is helpful (actually it’s not good) - especially if a surveyor doesn’t know that someone just re-monumented the station by sticking it in the ground.

 

In your case it would probably be pretty obvious to a surveyor that it’s a bad station because the arrow is pointing in the wrong direction, but in other cases it may not be so obvious.

 

Also, as foxtrot_xray indicates, if there is an underground mark I wouldn’t identify the station as destroyed if only the surface mark is destroyed.

[Bill93]

What is really important is to get the observed facts into the log to guide future potential users. My own judgment is that the broken RM is still useful as an RM but has lost its value as an elevation or horizontal control point.

[mloser]

I agree with Bill93 for the most part. It has no use as a vertical control point, but may serve some value in helping to find the horizontal station, at least until someone snags it or the farmer gets tired of it and rolls it into the weeds.

 

I would submit the PID to Deb and see if she agrees if it is destroyed, and make a note in the recovery for the main station about the status of the reference mark. That way if it is declared destroyed and the reference mark is removed from the database (of available marks... it remains in the database with a destroyed status).

[+Harry Dolphin]

I found my first 'post with disk broken off and laying on the ground' today. I should have checked NGS first, and I would have known that it was 'destroyed'. But I went on a 'quick check on GC' for benchmarks in the area. Oh, well. That'll teach me. Yup. NGS considers a disk on a post broken off to be 'destroyed'. I asked if I could go back to retrieve the disk as a souvenir...

KV1383

[+BuckBrooke]

Harry, I've found a couple like yours, along I-25 and I-40 around Albuquerque. The whole concrete monument is up and laying on its side, usually tumbled down a hill due to erosion of the bank, or dug out of the ground along the ROW fence by a fiber optic company laying fiber. Officially DESTROYED in both sorts of situations.