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I’ve always kind of wondered that too. If I remember right, from one of the textbooks in school there was a line about land ownership describing ‘a cone from the middle of the earth extending into the heavens above’. I took that to mean the cone never moves even though the land itself might. It wouldn’t surprise me if my interpretation was wrong though.
One of big reasons for the move to the modernized NSRS is the fact that the earth moves. The NGS will be tracking both plate movement through Euler Pole Parameters, and local movement through the Intra-Frame Deformation Model, both of which are integral to NATRF2022.
At this point, while coordinates are not a cure-all by any stretch, the ability to track plate and local movement is pretty darn good and continues to improve. The vast majority of CONUS can be tracked and modelled by the EPP; in those areas NATRF2022 coordinates will actually not change over time – although the NGS will periodically be publishing Reference Epoch Coordinates. In areas of local movement the IFDM will be applied. The blueprint documents for NATRF2022 do a better job of explaining it than me.
It sounds like there’s a lot of concern that as soon as we have coordinates on a point, all surveyors are somehow going to flip a switch and ignore all other forms of evidence. I don’t see that happening. We’ve stood with one foot in the past and one in the future for a long time, as @williwaw said upthread. We can continue to do so.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postmanhttps://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/weather/california-megaflood-study/index.html
This article really caught my attention given the pervasive drought in the west. Pendulum always swings both ways. I’m sure a good many California surveyors are more familiar with the problems associated with subsidence in the Central Valley from over drawing ground water. Throw in an atmospheric river fire hose…. They state the recovery costs could be 5x Katrina and they are over due for another event like 1861-1862, but likely worse with warmer temperatures holding more water vapor. I’d think after such an event, a backhoe would become standard equipment looking for corners.
Willy
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