What does "MONUMENTED" mean?

[+Crystallographer]

I recently became interested in benchmarks, so I looked up a bunch of them in my area. The Official History of one entry begins like this: "1985 by RBNF (MONUMENTED); DESCRIBED BY RESEARCHED BUT NOT FOUND 1985 6.2 MILES (10.0 KM) NORTH ALONG THE DENVER AND RIO GRANDE WESTERN RAILROAD FROM THISTLE, LOCATED IN NORTHEAST CORNER OF CONCRETE BRIDGE DECK OVER SPANISH FORK RIVER..." I'm mainly curious about what MONUMENTED means. Secondarily I'm curious about the meaning of DESCRIBED BY RESEARCHED BUT NOT FOUND. The position seems to be described in some detail, so how could it be NOT FOUND? If you would like to look at the whole description, the benchmark is LP1160. Any help anyone can offer will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[+DustyJacket]

See this photo essay off monumented benchmarks.

There seems to be a few different types.

 

ftp://ftp.ngs.noaa.gov/pub/uddf/info/Attach_10.pdf

 

DustyJacket

...If life was fair, a banana split would cure cancer.

[Z15]

It means whom it was monumented by was researched by not found. It does not pertain to the survey mark. The survey data did not identify who set the mark, e.g. what agency etc.

 

Monumented means first set or established, i.e. did not exist prior to this date.

[+DBleess]

To clarify, the best definition of a monument (for benchmark purposes) is "a position marker".

 

The process of "monumenting" is the actual process of setting the marker as outlined in the .pdf document above. The agency that established the reference benckmark comes in and makes a concrete & metal "stone" marker on site that becomes the monument to a surveyed position on Earth.

 

Date "monumented" is the date that process of creating the monument was accomplished.

 

As for your referenced benchmark, that description is a mess and does contradict itself. What it probably means is that the ORIGINAL J17 benchmark was looked for and could not be found, so a NEW J17 was made and called "J17 RESET" and this is the location that it was benchmarked. The original J17 decription doesn't show up in this list:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/nearest.asp?origin_lat=40.0566666666667&origin_long=-111.562222222222&all=y

 

But if you scroll down you will see a similar occurence with A42 and "A42 RESET" at marks KN0170 and KN0171.

 

The crew that worked south of Omaha in 1976 did a better job of documentation:

 

MJ0695 G78

MJ1055 "G78 RESET"

 

Read these two descriptions and you can see how in 1976 they found G78 in bad shape, and "recovered" it (ripped the sucker clean out of the ground) and replaced it with a reset (new replacement) monument.

 

SA / PP-ASEL-I

 

[This message was edited by DBleess on February 09, 2003 at 06:36 PM.]

[+Crystallographer]

Thanks very much dustyjacket, elcamino, and DBleess. I really appreciate your responses. You've helped make the benchmarking terminology clearer for me.