"Unmonumented" mark?

[zdv]

I've found several marks that list the "Marker Type" as unmonumented and provide minimal description. Anyone encountered these and have any idea what they are about? One example is NU1803.

 

Could I just walk around the area and log it?

[Z15]

If you did not find anything, no.

 

It said, object driven into the ground. Very vague and no way you could ever confirm something like this. It may have just been a wooden stake, who knows? Did you find anything remotely resembling something driven into the ground? A iron pipe, pin or anything? If not I say, forget about it and look for something that is more defined.

[survey tech]

Actually, this is an example of a point that was not even intended to be reused. The name, TP 1 226 A, gives you a clue about this. TP can stand for traverse point, turning point or temporary point, but in any case, its normally going to be a minor point used only to get from one place to another. In this case, it appears to have been part of a USGS traverse. I would guess that it was probably just a nail stuck in the ground. The fact that they did not bother to set a proper monument illustrates the fact that they considered this spot to be of little value and/or not likely to survive for long. Its likely that it only appears in the NGS database because it was part of a traverse run between important points and therefore it got adjusted along with those points. If the point is in a remote area, it may have been included simply because they decided it was better to have any kind of point listed in that area rather than nothing. Rarely, points of this kind may be improved and properly monumented at a later time, but at least 99% are never recovered and disappear within a short time.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I wonder how many of the current 718,803 left to go would disappear if these unmonumenteds were simply purged from the geocaching site's database. I'd think that an unmonumented station made in 1968 would be rather gone at this point. Perhaps "destroyed" wouldn't be far off base. It is odd to me that they even made it into the NGS database. They aren't even as good, in terms of probability of finding, as a 'skull' PID. I suggest purging them all from the geocaching database, or at least putting them in the 'skull' category.

Am I right in assuming that the 718,803 don't include the 'skull's (the markers listed in the NGS database as destroyed)?

[Z15]

How would you go about finding them all? Seems not worth the effort.

 

NGS maintains all marks in their records, even destroyed marks. While the NGS database does not list any info for this mark, there may exist more info in some other form (e.g. map, old survey field notes, in some other agency's records etc) and may be usefull some time in the future.

 

Lot of the marks in the NGS database were entered by contract people going thru records and entering the data. Newer additions are done with software used by the field partys and loaded into the datebase by staff.

[zdv]

Thanks for the info! The only place I've seen these is out in the rural areas of central Idaho. I haven't tried to find any of them, I just noticed them while surfing through the database.

 

The above mentioned marker has several other "unmonumenteds" within the 10mi radius.

[survey tech]

BDT

I doubt there are more than a few thousand, probably less than 1% of the total, they are nearly unheard of in developed areas, where they have usually already been weeded out to avoid annoyance.