Corps of Engineers quandaries

[+LSUFan]

We ran into a few things this weekend while looking for benchmarks south of our usual territory. There are a lot of US Corp of Engineer cap and bolt pairs, placed in this area in the 30's, which most don't have any recoveries on. A benchmarkers paradise you could say. LOL

 

Our first situation, arose on BW1603, which is a cap named KING from 1934. We found (a) KING cap from the datasheet description, but it had been stamped that it was reset in 1975. Any ideas on what happened here, or how (if) it should be logged with the NGS? I just logged it as a note on gc.com.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=BW1603

 

 

Our next situation happened at BW1564 which is a cap named SONES, also from 1934. There is no doubt we found the correct cap here, that was in the weeds, but it was attached to a broken off piece of pipe. It is destroyed. I thought about taking the cap, and trying to return it to the Corps, but didn't know if I really should. I'm not sure if the Corps are as friendly with us as the NGS is. Any advice on what (if anything) should be done about this, besides reporting it to Deb as destroyed for NSRS purposes.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=BW1564

 

 

Thanks

Edited June 6, 2011 by LSUFan

[kayakbird]

LSUFan,

 

Is there any chance that your UNK date

 

BW1603 HISTORY - Date Condition Recov. By

BW1603 HISTORY - UNK MONUMENTED DOD

BW1603 HISTORY - 1934 GOOD DOD

 

cap & bolt pair may be one of these? Have you found any of this style that are dated?

 

from Special Pub #18:

 

NOTE 60.-A type of bench mark set by the U. S. Army Engineers. It consists of a concrete slab

16 by 16 by 4 inches set about 3 feet in the ground. A copper bolt is embedded in the concrete

slab, which is also surmounted by an iron pipe 4 inches in diameter and 4 feet long with a cap

bolted to its top. The center of the cap is directly above the bolt in the slab. Elevations are

usually taken on both the bolt and the center of the cap.

 

And I'm guessing that what they mean by 'RESET' is just re-plumbing the pipe over the underground mark -

similar to what the IBC calls 'RENEWED' along the Canadian border. Many of such IBC's do not have DATASHEET history.

 

I don't think that SP Pub #18 has a level run that may have tied to this line - but I didn't look very hard.

 

kayakbird

Edited June 6, 2011 by kayakbird

[+LSUFan]

LSUFan,

 

Is there any chance that your UNK date

 

BW1603 HISTORY - Date Condition Recov. By

BW1603 HISTORY - UNK MONUMENTED DOD

BW1603 HISTORY - 1934 GOOD DOD

 

cap & bolt pair may be one of these? Have you found any of this style that are dated?

 

from Special Pub #18:

 

NOTE 60.-A type of bench mark set by the U. S. Army Engineers. It consists of a concrete slab

16 by 16 by 4 inches set about 3 feet in the ground. A copper bolt is embedded in the concrete

slab, which is also surmounted by an iron pipe 4 inches in diameter and 4 feet long with a cap

bolted to its top. The center of the cap is directly above the bolt in the slab. Elevations are

usually taken on both the bolt and the center of the cap.

 

And I'm guessing that what they mean by 'RESET' is just re-plumbing the pipe over the underground mark -

similar to what the IBC calls 'RENEWED' along the Canadian border. Many of such IBC's do not have DATASHEET history.

 

I don't think that SP Pub #18 has a level run that may have tied to this line - but I didn't look very hard.

 

kayakbird

 

Kayakbird, I have found several of this kind. I have noticed a lot of the times that the description for the bolt (which is underground) also is the same as for the cap. It's like they copied the same thing for the cap (surface) and bolt (subsurface) when they entered them onto a datasheet/database. However, they do list them like below too:

 

This is from a cap & bolt pair I found and submitted a recovery on. The HH2 coordinates and pics I submitted have been added to the datasheet, just waiting on the actual recovery report to show.

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=CQ0974

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=CQ0975

 

Now as far as a placement date being shown on one of these kind of caps, I can't say I have seen one yet. Let me go back and look at my logs to see.

[kayakbird]

LSUFan,

 

UNK date

 

didn't look very hard.

 

kayakbird

 

Now as far as a placement date being shown on one of these kind of caps, I can't say I have seen one yet. Let me go back and look at my logs to see.

 

Rained in in Lewistown with many roads in the eastern 2/3 of Montana too wet for BM hunting if not closed, so I did take a closer look at Special Publication #18. Found quite a few that seem to correlate with named and numbered PID's in a few LA counties that I had to do multiple downloads on to get the shape files (my just switched over to AT&T aircard doesn't want to do more than 15 KB in one batch).

 

Logged the below note with CQ0974/5 and a similar one with CQ0128 - not logged yet.

 

This COE cap, pipe and underground stone with bolt is indexed on P 305 (Adobe 311/334)

of Special Publication #18. Apparently it was set sometime prior to the report of 1899.

 

from SP #18 P 166 (Adobe 172/334)

 

NOTE 61.-A type of bench mark set by the U. S. Army Engineers. It consists of an iron pipe,

3 inches in diameter and 5 feet long, set 4 1/2 feet into the ground and covered with a cap.

Elevations are taken on the knob of the cap.

 

 

 

CQ0974

 

 

Also ran across a younger one that you have logged that is dated.

 

CQ0128

 

Happy hunting, kayakbird

[kayakbird]

This line

 

"Logged the below note with CQ0974/5 and a similar one with CQ0128 - not logged yet."

 

in previous post should have linked to ST. JOSEPH CAP & BOLT pair BW0705 and BW0706.

 

As the Montana Monsoon continues I have continued to research old Louisiana points in Special Publication #18. Of the 282 named points (hope that I don't have time to play with the numbered ones - gotta head for the Missouri Breaks one of these days!!)in the index pages, it looks like there are 53 for sure matches and another 15 maybe's. I have not attempted to map pin and check locations - just looked in the DS for the type of cap & bolt pairs that the MRC/USE/COE used at the turn of the century.

 

One complication is that GSAK does recognize an UKN 'Placed' date, but defaults the first history date.

 

If any one is interested in my work in progress list contact me off forum and I will send you an Excel file in my modified GSAK view format.

 

kayakbird