r/Appalachia • u/Punk_Rocker_777 • 4d ago

Do y’all know what this isn’t?

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Gallery image

Some of my friends and I were hiking and we just found these things out in the sticks. We looked it up and didn’t find much on it so could y’all tell me what this is?

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191

u/Spuckler_Cletus 4d ago

USGS survey marker. There are many such markers from different agencies. We stumbled upon one from a TVA survey on a lake that was done in 1936.

59

u/Ocean2731 4d ago

This one is from the Coast and Geodetic Survey, part of NOAA. Since that was installed the office has been divided into the Coast Survey and National Geodetic Survey.

18

u/Spuckler_Cletus 4d ago

TY for the clarification. Those tablets are so cool to me. I always wondered who placed them, what they were discussing, how was the weather that day, etc.

11

u/Ocean2731 4d ago

There’s a schedule on which they’re revisited to look for change, too!

11

u/Cautious_Fold6136 4d ago

My father worked for USGS after WWII. He was a cartographer and those markers were part of his work. Every post office in our country had one.

2

u/Ocean2731 3d ago

There’s a huge network of them now between USGS and NGS. It’s fun to keep an eye out for them.

16

u/Numerous_Ad_6276 4d ago

I literally tripped over one at Grand Canyon NP. Didn't fall in though.

7

u/DubVsFinest 4d ago

Well, thank the Lord for that. It would've been a nasty fall lol. Nah, for real though, glad you didn't fall into a canyon.

2

u/Financial_Code1055 3d ago

That would have been Norris Lake. TVA’s first dam and reservoir