help identifying this benchmark

[+JL_HSTRE]

 

 

Location: N 27 06.903 W 80 17.107

 

Found this benchmark today. It is on the boundary of land managed by the US Army Corps Of Engineers (St Lucie Lock, on the St Lucie Canal near Stuart, Florida). The locks were not originally built by the ACOE, but they heavily reworked them in the early 1940s so this could have been placed during initial survey work. Most of the stamping was as hard to read in person as it is in the photo.

 

I can make out:

22.735 MSL

1938

 

Not listed in NGS. You have to cross the locks then follow a 1/2 mile trail into the woods that passes by the mark. Is it likely an ACOE boundary mark?

[+Holtie22]

Is it likely an ACOE boundary mark?

 

Yup

[+EdrickV]

There seems to be a database of those marks here:

http://mapsrv.saj.usace.army.mil/projects/bench/monument.php

 

However, that specific one doesn't look like it's in there. All the marks in the database that I saw were from the 70's or later. If you could decipher any more of the text on it, maybe you could find something to identify it and maybe contact them with the info?

http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/

[+JL_HSTRE]

I found a much more legible and benchmark on the walkway across the Lock itself:

 

 

This one is stamped 22.018 but without a date. Definitely Corps Of Engineers, specifically "Harbor Surveys". This benchmark is also not listed in the ACOE database.

 

It seems pretty sad that not only are most ACOE benchmarks NOT in the NGS database, but some aren't even in their own database! Boggles the mind.

 

Thanks very much for that link to the ACOE database; I didn't have that before and it could be helpful again in the future.

 

I need to return to the Lock again when the Visitor Center is open to see about some geocache placements and I will inquire about the benchmarks then.

[+EdrickV]

I could imagine many reasons why some of these marks aren't in that database.

1. It exists in a paper database but was never put into the online database because it isn't in use anymore.

2. The paperwork for the marks was lost before the computerized database was made.

3. It exists in a non-public database but, for some reason, was not put in the public database.

 

Looking at the inline map, it seems there certainly is no shortage of marks along that canal to search for though. And while I'm not exactly sure where it is, I did (accidentally) manage to get to a datasheet for a mark that dated back to 1946. Or more accuratly, I somehow ended up looking at the data for a reference mark for that mark. (It interestingly enough had no listed coordinates, so it looked like the map was putting the icon for it out in the ocean off the coast of Africa.)

 

The actual non-RM mark for the non-coordinate reference mark is MN AMBE TR-22.

[DaveD]

This mark isn't in the NGS database because like so many of the USGS marks the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seldom submitted their work for publication by the USC&GS/NGS. In many cases the survey work was not done to meet national geodetic standards and was often defined as local projects that were not even tied to the national reference datums. This has changed since Katrina. Today USACE submits a considerable amount of data to NGS through the On Line Processing User Service (OPUS). You may be able to find some information on this mark by contacting the Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, survey office -- Mr. Jeff Navaille -- Jeffrey.L.Navaille@saj02.usace.army.mil