Department of Energy Horizontal and Vertical Control Monuments

[gurubob]

Back when... the DOE created a GPS network here in the fine county of Ellis. This survey established control for the Superconducting Super Collider SSC. It includes approximatly 300 first order vertical and horizontal monuments. I have been to the majority of these monuments. They are the cool new ones. Extruded aluminum canisters with hinged lids over 8' 1" steel rods driven to the point of refusal. The rods are incased in a hydrolic fluid stasus. Built to last. To bad the SSC wasn't built to last. Same local datum and projection used by published NGS monuments (NAD 83 NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS 4202). This is a very sweet network. I would like to know, have you ever found DOE monumentation and are the monuments typical?

[+rdw]

I'd guess that your's is a unique situation. There isn't much DoE activity that would require surveying. I've never seen anything like it in southern Illinois. There might be some near Paducah, KY. Around here, there are alot of ACoE markers on and around levees, though I couldn't find any of the stupid things yesterday. I'd be interested in seeing a pic of those super-fancy hydraulically encased steel rods though. Sounds cool.

 

rdw

[+embra]

I was thinking for a moment that 300 monuments was an extraordinary concentration. But then I thought I recollected that the colider was a circular contraption with something like a 20 mile diameter? Or is that the wrong memory fragment?

 

Still quite a collection. And they do sound tres chic.