That's too bad the MAG/PK nails are acceptable. They were banned a few years back in MO for use as corners. They can only be used for control points. But there are still boneheads setting them. RR spikes are actually looked down on too some complain they don't have punch marks or crosses on them and don't know where to shoot the spike. Go figure. But then again I have seen a 0.01' call on a found cut cross.
Rant off..
> I have a Mag Nail marking a section corner in a road. And I have a Certified Corner Record filed in 2011 by the surveyor who set the nail. He set his nail from references from an earlier CCR. I also have his references, and our measurements agree. What could be sweeter?
Okay, I'll bite. Is there a trail of evidence connecting the position of the mag nail with that of the original GLO corner? If not, why isn't the question "should I look for the actual corner or does any of it really matter?"
An unrecorded mag nail sounds like a nothing, and since no one claims it.......set a nice 3" aluminum cap in the road, record and move on.
> Okay, I'll bite. Is there a trail of evidence connecting the position of the mag nail with that of the original GLO corner? If not, why isn't the question "should I look for the actual corner or does any of it really matter?"
No, there is no trail of evidence. There (almost) never is.
We are doing about a dozen sections in this project, and this quality of monumentation is typical throughout. The only record between the GLO surveys of the late 1800's and CCRs from the 1980's on are DOT alignment plans which are sometimes useful for alignments but spotty for PLSS. The client in this case is the DOT, and they have no interest in paying for the sort of search you propose. You could buy the surface rights of all 12 sections outright for that kind of money, nearly. Really, the road is the section line for all intents and purposes.
Besides, almost all of the corners fall in improved roads. These roads are largely graded natural ground, with perhaps a few inches of gravel added to keep the dust down. Very few are built up of imported material which may have entombed the original stone. Searches for original sandstones in sandstone roads are not likely to be often successful.
In OK, if you find a nail at about the cl/cl intersection of section line roads you do the happy dance and move on.
> > Okay, I'll bite. Is there a trail of evidence connecting the position of the mag nail with that of the original GLO corner? If not, why isn't the question "should I look for the actual corner or does any of it really matter?"
> No, there is no trail of evidence. There (almost) never is.
Does Oklahoma law provide for filing corner records on some random PK nail or Railroad spike that doesn't actually perpetuate some PLSS corner? I thought the entire purpose of the corner record was to preserve evidence of the government subdivision. On the other hand, if the PLSS has given way to the PKSS, shouldn't there be some mention of that in Oklahoma statue?
> Besides, almost all of the corners fall in improved roads. These roads are largely graded natural ground, with perhaps a few inches of gravel added to keep the dust down. Very few are built up of imported material which may have entombed the original stone.
Jeez, that sounds like a perfect situation to actually look for the original monuments: They would not be under deep fill and the road pavement is going to be reconstructed anyway. Obviously I don't survey in Oklahoma, though.
> Does Oklahoma law provide for filing corner records on some random PK nail or Railroad spike that doesn't actually perpetuate some PLSS corner? I thought the entire purpose of the corner record was to preserve evidence of the government subdivision. On the other hand, if the PLSS has given way to the PKSS, shouldn't there be some mention of that in Oklahoma statue?
These finds are generally classified as "obliterated" corners, in the GLO/BLM sense of the word.
> Jeez, that sounds like a perfect situation to actually look for the original monuments: They would not be under deep fill and the road pavement is going to be reconstructed anyway. Obviously I don't survey in Oklahoma, though.
My point is that the original stone was probably swept away a long time ago with the first pass of the grader.
Nothing would please me more than to conduct a really intensive search, recovery, and monumentation of every corner, but it just isn't going to happen until the land values increase sharply.
Two slightly bigger issues are:
1) The owner of the road (State, county, city, township) tends to get irate when you bring in a backhoe for about two hours to completely destroy the road starting at the presumed location then working outward for up to twenty feet in all directions at a depth of up to three feet or more depending on presumed original installation elevation. The drivers who must be diverted also tend to get a bit testy.
2) Your client does not want to pay to reconstruct said road to its pre-search condition, especially when you do this at up to eight locations around the section.
I know this is an awful thing to admit, but, there are surely many thousands of PLSS original monuments that will never be found despite the fact they still exist. For one thing, the vast majority in my neighborhood were a stake and pits that most assuredly were buried by road construction up to 150 years ago. The last significant remnant of such a stake being found was in 1957 in this county. Stones survived only when dirt was hauled in to raise the road bed or an intelligent county official lowered it by hand. That didn't work too well in areas where it is a matter of a few inches to bedrock. State highway construction, beginning in about 1930, held little respect for the idea of perpetuating the existence of original monuments when the few that were left intact were found. A nearby highway that stretches from the Gulf to Canada that was rerouted in about 1959 buried all evidence of the alleged section corner locations by up to 20 feet. The few section corner references provided are generally to items that were removed during construction. Working backwards from existing evidence to the highway plans is about the best one can do to re-establish the 1959 location, which may or may not have been perpetuating the true original monument in the first place.
You're going to document it was there, that's more than the guy who set it did. Go ahead and pull it. I'm no expert on Oklahoma survey law but a lot of states specify that a point can only be removed under the direction of a licensed surveyor, if that's what Oklahoma law allows than go for it. I hate going to an intersection and finding (no joking) up to 5 points, none called for, so I spend my time locating them all to figure out if any are correct. If God forbid that point is marking the true corner, you've documented it's location and it can be re-set.
The new Lucas column at POB has a relevancy to this matter in many ways. It is his spin on accepting the status quo again by using a statute of limitation basis to purge all undiscovered original monuments of the past.
sort of a wash, rinse and rinse again process.
I don't mean to sidetrack but I thought it was relevant to Norman and Cow's remarks.
I don't meant to divert readers to POB land either but see no harm since their forum has sort of faded in the sunset so to speak...
> My point is that the original stone was probably swept away a long time ago with the first pass of the grader.
>
> Nothing would please me more than to conduct a really intensive search, recovery, and monumentation of every corner, but it just isn't going to happen until the land values increase sharply.
But isn't this really the LAST chance that anyone will ever have to recover those original corners if the road is going to be a highway construction project? I'd think that the plan ought to be to identify the locations where:
- the position of the original corner is best known, and
- the road grades and terrain suggest that a buried stone's chances of being in place are best.
Excavating two or three locations that seem the most likely candidates and finding nothing would be a good effort worth documenting.
> The new Lucas column at POB has a relevancy to this matter in many ways. It is his spin on accepting the status quo again by using a statute of limitation basis to purge all undiscovered original monuments of the past.
Wowee! You don't even have to read the Lucas column to know what an incredible disaster that would be for the landowning public if the mere fact that a low-ball surveyor or someone who's been to a few too many seminars can't find the boundary monuments and stabs their own, that somehow that erroneously placed marker automagically becomes the new corner by law.
Yep, seeing that more and more.
I read it quickly last evening on an iPhone while waiting for someone but that is what my brain comprehended. So I will default to my disclaimer if applicable. 😐
Interesting twist to stop all that pesky and tedious research, Don't you think?
Now where is that GIS map?
And there is the 40 year rule, research back 40 years and no problems crop up-then you are done!!!! Easy!!
> And there is the 40 year rule, research back 40 years and no problems crop up-then you are done!!!! Easy!!
I ran into a corollary of that recently in the views of a recent licensee who didn't seem to be a dunce, but had apparently read way too much of Lucas and way too little of the law. His task was to locate a line that had originally been laid out in 1837 and his methodology consisted of using a bent iron pipe that had been set in the last twenty years and another ugly-looking pipe of more recent origin about 80 feet away on the opposite side of the road, prolonging that segment North for a couple of hundred feet without further questions that I could see.
In the course of that exercise, the fact that bent iron pipe was a sloppy "replacement" of another marker that still was in place only 12 inches down, and that his line was more than 6 ft. offset from where better, older evidence indicated that the line had been run went undiscovered. The apparent rationale? "A surveyor should be able to rely upon another surveyor's work". Meaning: "if another surveyor says it is so, who am I to doubt it?" That was bizarre.
> It's an easy answer here. Rehabilitate the monument to meet code. Not sure in OK...
Ditto. I say upgrade the monument that you are accepting as the original location, and use the other nail as one of the tie-marks to your upgraded monument. In fact around here you would be obligated to upgrade the monument to a more suitable mark. mag nails aren't specifically and uniquely identifiable.
> Is there a trail of evidence connecting the position of the mag nail with that of the original GLO corner? If not, why isn't the question "should I look for the actual corner or does any of it really matter?"
:good:
Always a good idea to look for original marks.
I have found original stones below asphalt and concrete roads before.
From an article by Mr. Penry...? if I recall correctly:
Yep, same with the BLM holding new brass caps over original stones.
The 40 year rule is a law passed to "help" the title industry.
Surveyors do need to understand how it effects your survey, no reason to look back to the creation of the parcel to figure out who owns what if there is a title trail more than 40 years old, of course that doesn't negate the junior/senior issues or establishment of old monuments that create a tract, just ownership issues tied to the parcels.
The title industry pushed to get it passed.
> I say upgrade the monument that you are accepting as the original location, and use the other nail as one of the tie-marks...
I may do that as an alternative, since I'm getting direction from within our company to not remove the other nail. But I am not obligated by OK law to upgrade, or to pull or not pull. I'm only obligated - by law - to file a CCR because the 2nd nail is there since the 1st nail and its accessories are just as called for in a CCR already on file.
Get it? Some jack leg pincushions a corner, fails to file, and that obligates the next hapless joker in line to file.
> ....But I am not obligated by OK law to upgrade, or to pull or not pull. I'm only obligated - by law - to file a CCR because the 2nd nail is there since the 1st nail and its accessories are just as called for in a CCR already on file.
I'm surprised your state doesn't have some kind of minimum standards for monumentation. I would hope that the monument is, at a minimum, uniquely identifiable, and reasonably durable. A nail just doesn't seem adequate to me.
> Get it? Some jack leg pincushions a corner, fails to file, and that obligates the next hapless joker in line to file.
If is not of any record, and no CCR is filed on it, is it a survey mark? I have never been in that position, but I would think it more prudent to remove the uncalled-for mark to remove confusion. I just can't get over that it's a nail. I don't trust a nail for even a traverse point....much less some kind of boundary marker. I think of them as temporary marks.
