Reporting Destroyed Question

[+wv-yen]

I was looking around on the site for benchmarks in the area where I grew up to possibly find some the next time I go down to visit my folks. I discovered some that I know are destroyed. One in particular, HW3204 is definitely gone. On the geocaching.com page it has one report as missing then one as not found. The folks that marked it as not found in 2009 apparently did submit a report to the NGS because the PID has a recovery note in 2009 as not found. Should I file a report for this one as missing? What documentation do I need to send along as proof? I don't know if I can find news articles about the bridge being torn down or not.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

I was looking around on the site for benchmarks in the area where I grew up to possibly find some the next time I go down to visit my folks. I discovered some that I know are destroyed. One in particular, HW3204 is definitely gone. On the geocaching.com page it has one report as missing then one as not found. The folks that marked it as not found in 2009 apparently did submit a report to the NGS because the PID has a recovery note in 2009 as not found. Should I file a report for this one as missing? What documentation do I need to send along as proof? I don't know if I can find news articles about the bridge being torn down or not.

 

Did you verify that the bridge AND the abutments are gone. If the abutments are still there then there is a possibility that the mark is still there. If they are gone, then get a good set of pictures showing where the bridge had been. Also see if you can find a newspaper article about the bridge being removed. You can then send them to Deb at the NGS and have her decide whether or not to mark the benchmark as destroyed.

 

John

[+wv-yen]

Thanks, John. This wasn't a standard, small, across a river bridge. It was in the middle of town over a couple other streets and a building. They leveled the whole works, flattened the surrounding area and paved a 4 lane intersection through it. It is, to quote Montgomery Gentry, "Gone like a freight train, Gone like yesterday!" Since this is a small town, finding a news article about them tearing it down is going to be challenging. If I can't find one should I send the report anyway? Or just let it go? I can possibly locate photos showing the bridge and then the same area after it was removed with corresponding landmarks in the background. Would that be enough? I don't want to send the report without giving Deb enough documentation to take action. (I can't imagine having her job, editing the benchmarks for the entire country - wow!) At the same time I would like to see the database as accurate as possible. It also seems confusing on the geocaching.com page when there is a DNF log after a destroyed log. It could lead people to think that the person that posted the destroyed log just jumped the gun and that there really is something there to go look for. Thanks for the advise on this.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Standard policy is to log a DNF if you do not find the disk itself to prove it is destroyed. There are exceptions to that policy with one of them being a set of pictures showing the before and after of where the disk had been.

 

If you have clear pictures showing the area described on the benchmark page both before and after you should go ahead and send them to Deb and she will make the final determination for the datasheet. Deb just needs enough information to verify that the mark is actually gone.

 

Don't forget to log it as destroyed on GC.com as well.

 

John

[68-eldo]

Street view on Google Earth verifies there are no bridge abutments there.

 

But then I get to snooping around and I find the Elkins station and what looks like the remains of a large roundhouse.

 

Then I see the bridge south of there is missing in 1999 and 2003, but back in 2007 and 2009. Curious.

 

I know off topic. Sorry. Google Earth leads me astray all the time. <sigh>

[kayakbird]

wv-yen,

 

Don't know if you have yet looked at the NGS Recovery page:

 

(portion)

Note: For destroyed marks do one of the following:

 

1) If you have found the actual marker separated from its setting, you can report the point as destroyed. To do so please send the report on the destroyed mark as an email to Deb Brown (Deb.Brown@noaa.gov). If you send this email, please do not submit the current form, Deb Brown will submit the report for you. In addition, please submit proof of the mark's destruction via actual disk, rubbing, photo, or digital picture (preferred) to Deb Brown:

 

Deb Brown, N/NGS143

National Geodetic Survey, NOAA

1315 East West Highway

Silver Spring, MD 20910

 

2) If you did not find the actual marker, then you should enter notes concerning evidence of its possible destruction as text records and select "Not recovered, not found" as the condition of mark.

 

NGS Recovery Entry

 

Pretty straight forward instructions.

 

Or this in the information on the GC Benchmark Hunting home page.

 

"

What do the choices "Found It", "Didn't Find It", "Destroyed", and "Post a Note" mean?

 

You can log "Found it!" if you see the marker and know that it is the correct marker. If the marker is a survey disk, you must read the disk. The designation (its name) stamped on it must match the Designation in the description. Reading the disk is necessary because another disk could have been set within a few feet of the one you're looking for. If the station has reference mark disks, they don't count as the find; you must find the station disk itself.

If you searched carefully, and could not find the marker, you should log "Didn't find it!" so that other benchmark hunters will know that the mark is going to be difficult or impossible to find. There is nothing wrong with doing a good job of looking and not finding the marker, since many of them are actually gone and many others are buried under dirt, asphalt, concrete, etc.

"Destroyed" means that you know that the benchmark cannot be in its original location because the structure it was on is gone. Don't log as destroyed unless you are absolutely 100% sure. If there is any doubt at all, it's best to refrain from using this option and let someone else have a chance at finding it. Remember, you can always seek advice from more experienced hunters by posting a message, which may enable you to increase your chances of success!

"Post a Note" is good for letting other benchmark hunters know about some special problem they may encounter looking for the benchmark, for an update on the benchmark's status, etc. Many experienced benchmark hunters use the "Post a Note" function to indicate that a benchmark is inaccessible (cannot be safely or legally searched for) because it is in a restricted area or on private property (and the owner withholds permission to access).

 

I looked for a disk in the place described in the datasheet but the disk is gone and only the stem remains. How should I log this?

This 'diskless stem' situation is a difficult one and requires a lot of experience to help you make sure you've found actual evidence of the mark you're looking for. The most obvious features are the brass metal stem and the circular evidence of a disk having been mounted there. Often there is a circular indentation that held the disk and some of the mounting cement might remain. These situations should be reported as "Found It" instead of "Destroyed" since the stem of the disk could possibly still be used for some types of surveying. If you're not really sure you've found the correct remains (more than one disk could've been mounted in the immediate area, there are many holes in cement but few of them are where benchmarks were), report your findings as accurately as you can and log "Didn't find it". In all cases of diskless stems, photographic evidence in your log is extremely helpful.

"

BENCHMARK HUNTING

 

Good advice from an old thread:

 

"1. On the Geocaching site, some people log these as Didn't find it, some log them as Found it, some Post a Note, and some log them as Mark destroyed. There are reasonable justifications for all four. The safest is to log them as Didn't find it or Post a Note, and post the picture with the log. What you found might be the remains of another disk that happened to be nearby the one you were looking for. It's probably best to use

 

Mark destroyed only if you report it to the NGS and THEY declare it destroyed (you then change your Didn't find it or Found it log to Mark destroyed on the Geocaching Site). Sometimes the PID's (benchmark's) Documented History itself says the station is destroyed, but the PID isn't coded destroyed for some reason. In such cases, you could log the station as destroyed on the Geocaching site if you physically go to visit the site to check the situation yourself.

 

2. On the NGS Mark Recovery site, if you think the PID is destroyed, there are 2 explicit choices and, it seems to me, one implicit choice. In none of the three choices can you actually log the PID as destroyed - the NGS Mark Recovery form has no provision for that - only the NGS can log a PID as destroyed. The first explicit choice is to email Deb Brown with a picture of a marker (disk) if you actually found the disk separated from its mounting. If you didn't find the disk, the other explicit choice is to log as "Not recovered, not found" on the Mark Recovery form and enter in the text field at the bottom of the form why you think it's destroyed. The implicit choice is to email Deb Brown with a picture of the remains of the "destroyed" mark with a text stating why you think you've found the remains of the correct mark. She will then make the judgement as to whether you did, and how to log it on the NGS site. As I see it, the basic difference between the second explicit choice and the implicit choice is whether or not you have a picture of the remains of the PID to email to Deb.

 

For beginners, it's probably best to hold off logging to the NGS until you get experience with a bunch of PIDs. "

 

Destroyed Benchmarks (2004)

 

and a more recent one:

 

"Perhaps a clearer distinction is needed between logging standards on GC versus logging to NGS.

 

For NGS and professional users, Destroyed is the status below Poor, and means that the position originally marked by the monument (either horizontal or vertical according to the data sheet) can no longer be determined to a useful accuracy. This can happen with a beautiful bronze disk still in its original neighborhood but significantly moved. Photographic proof of its movement will usually result in an official Destroyed classification on the data sheet.

 

In many cases it appears that the disk has been removed from the area. One example is when a road has been extensively regraded so that there is no way you can believe it survived. Then, without absolute proof, the proper log is "Not Found, presumed Destroyed because ..."

 

For logging on GC, standards are looser. I am comfortable with someone logging Found on a disk that NGS would call destroyed, so long as the person found the proper disk near the proper location. I might log it as Destroyed on GC but won't fight the battle to make them see it the NGS way.

 

I will pick a fight when somebody logs a disk with the wrong stamping, or an intersection station that cannot be the right age to be on the data sheet, or those "portable benchmarks" that somebody carries to caching events and everybody who sees it (out of its proper location) logs it Found. That even breaks the rules for caches, but it doesn't seem to stop the practice.

 

I sometimes log Destroyed on GC when I'm convinced beyond doubt that the mark has to be gone, even if I can't prove it to NGS.

Bill93"

 

define DESTROYED

 

Welcome back in the game. kayakbird

[AZcachemeister]

Without convincing photographic evidence, your best option is to report it 'not found', with a comment that the bridge appears to have been removed.

[Chuck E. Mong]

I think Google Earth has a neat feature that's called back in time or something (Google Earth is on another computer I can't get to at this time). It lets you load older imagery up to maybe 10 years ago. If you could find your bridge on an older shot you may be able to enter the coordinates to pinpoint on the shot where the marker should be. That and a current image should be able to show that the marker couldn't be there. I would think that the engineers on a project like that would know that they are destroying a marker and report it. Maybe they're just using it for a paperweight.

 

I found a marker that was reported as stolen (maybe not officially) on geocaching dot com and found both reference marks first. If found it by metal detector as a clod of moss had grown over it.

 

Geocaching Log

[AZcachemeister]

I found a marker that was reported as stolen (maybe not officially) on geocaching dot com and found both reference marks first. If found it by metal detector as a clod of moss had grown over it.

 

Geocaching Log

 

Thus, without specific evidence that the mark has certainly been destroyed, all you can say is you didn't find it, if you didn't find it.

[kayakbird]

I believe that Chuck E. Mong was referring to a previous Geocache log for the station linked in his message

 

 

MY3612

 

which had been reported as "stolen' by a previous cacher - luckily that person did not do a recovery - as indicated by the current DATASHEET.

 

MY3612 HISTORY - 1938 SEE DESCRIPTION MAGS

MY3612 HISTORY - 19590108 GOOD MAGS

MY3612

 

C E. M is to be commended on his repeat visits to find this station. And C E. M, I can't quite tell from you log w/diagrams if the bearings to the RM's had been reversed. That does happen on occasion and you just get in the habit of checking out all the options - arrows 180 out is a bit unusual, but 20 or 30 degrees can be expected. Also the convention that the first one clockwise from 360 is RM 1 was not used here.

 

All in all, a good mystery solved. Thanks! kayakbird

[68-eldo]

I think Google Earth has a neat feature that's called back in time or something (Google Earth is on another computer I can't get to at this time). It lets you load older imagery up to maybe 10 years ago. If you could find your bridge on an older shot you may be able to enter the coordinates to pinpoint on the shot where the marker should be.

 

You are correct, and it is available on the tool bar. The icon is a clock. However it is limited to what ever images that is available. The area for the mark in question has four images, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2009.

 

1999

 

2003

 

2007

 

2009

 

No railroad bridge seen in any of those pictures.