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Found a bolt


Harry Dolphin

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552672e6-a184-4c92-b577-c510ff7c48a4.jpg

 

Was bushwhacking up a hill (about 245' of climb from the trail). Didn't find the cache, but I found this bolt in a rock. N 40 55.037 W 074 36.969. It does not seem to be in the NGS files. Any ideas? (Who else but a surveyor would put a bolt in a rock???)

 

Harry, Was it leaded in or a more modern cementing material? With the center punch it might be a cadastral point of some kind. kayakbird

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With that indentation it could be a survey location. Not necessarily a brass cap, big national thing, perhaps a local thing. Set up GPS at bolt A, perhaps at ground level, and set one at bolt B, on the hill. Do it onece a year and record the distance both vertically (elevation) and on a flat plane (like we do distance be caches) a difference means it's moving, perhaps the hill is collapsing. Never seen it as a bolt, usually a fixed position like a brass cap, and a permanently mounted reflector for modern survey equipment, but if its for line of sight equipment like a laser rangefinder, it would be useless in forest.

 

I don't think it would be cadastral. The only property marked like that I've seen are in cities, bolts on sidewalks for example. In that kind of area it's a buried metal rod. Unless the property line runs through the rock.

 

I'm not expert, his is just based on what I've seen, and what I know.

Edited by T.D.M.22
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Thanks all. A strange thing to find in the woods. No NGS markers within a mile. The bolt is obviously well worn. I did not check the setting. Being near the top of a steep slope, I doubt it was ever a property line. It is in a state wildlife management area. The trail below used to be a rail line. It is now a pipeline. If there were another marker on the trail below, from the time it was a rail line, that would probably have been destroyed when it was converted to a pipeline.

Oh, well. A strange thing to find in the woods.

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When USGS did mapping surveys they often set reference marks of various types in support of local mapping efforts, They often used bolts, nails, spikes, cut X, chiseled square and many other items in their runs to monuments with disks in them. They list them in the field books as "UE bolt", UE for Useful Elevation.

Edited by Z15
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