Found one not listed

[trd4me]

Found this one about 1/2 mile from JT2537, SONOMA. It is a pipe cap dated 1979. On our ranch also in the lower field just about 50 ft off D street. It is not listed so....

 

Benchamrk

 

Pete

[+happycycler]

Nice photo. I have been wondering what a pipe cap looks like. I have searched for them without success thus far.

I would gues that you have found a section corner marker. You might plot it on a USGS Topographic quad to see if it falls at the intersection of sections 8,9,16,17. It appears to be in Range 7 West and Township ?something?

(I just looked at the Topozone map for the area of JT2537 and those section numbers do appear. Look at the map at the 1:50000 scale.)

Now you need to climb up on that hill and locate that station up there. You know that it is in the database. Keep on searching!

 

[This message was edited by happycycler on May 15, 2003 at 06:43 AM.]

[DaveD]

This mark is either the corner of, or a reference mark for the intersection of sections 8,9,16,17 of Township 4 North, Range 7 West of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) defined by the Mount Diablo principal meridian and baseline. This is the system that defines the cadastral or legal boundaries in most of the west states. "RGE" are the initials of the surveyor who set the mark, and 26312 should be his professional license number. Information for such marks are often stored at the county surveyors office (if your county has one). If you don't know much about PLSS, you can find a nice primer at -- http://www.geography.wisc.edu/sco/geodetic/plss.html

 

The vast majority of survey monuments for the PLSS in the United States have never been connected into the National Spatial Reference System, and fewer still are actually published by NGS

[trd4me]

This pipe cap is on the plot map. We were looking at the map and that is how I even knew to look for it. The closest benchmark disk is the other one I listed in the first post, designated Sonoma, and we have already logged it. It it on the top of the mountain.

 

Pete

parksoffroad.com

[+Kewaneh & Shark]

This cap is a PLSS section corner, as DaveD has explained. It is not a benchmark. I have found many similar to it. It can be identified by the center cross with the four numbers appearing in each quadrant of the cross, showing the numbering of the adjacent sections. Also, as DaveD explained, the 'T4S' & 'R7W' show the Township and Range numbers as Township 4 South, Range 7 West, in the Mount Diablo Base and Meridian. This is the base and meridian that is used for most of California and all of Nevada. The marking of PLSS section corners is specified in the Manual of Instructions for the Survey of the Public Lands of the United States which is prepared by the Bureau of Land Managenment.

 

The additional information that is shown on the cap is that it was set in 1979 by a Civil Engineer, 'RCE 26312', a Mr. Emil J. Mogel, Jr, of Petaluma, Sonoma County, California. Any additional information you may need about the cap would usually be obtained through him, however he is now deceased. If you are still curious, the office of the County Surveyor may be able to help.

 

Keep on Caching!

- Kewaneh