• Letter from the Field: A user comments on how NGS's OPUS service helped with an Aerial Photo survey.



• Geocaching game players strike gold -- er, brass -- with 'Benchmark Hunting'. Armed with GPS receivers, these gamesters find a sense of excitement locating those ubiquitous NGS monuments.  Full Story

• Some of Louisiana's main evacuation routes are sinking at an alarming rate.
  Full Story [pdf].



• On October 14, 2002, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc. will install a National Geodetic Survey monument on the West Lawn of Monticello. This survey marker commemorates the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's expedition. Full Story.

• The National Geodetic Survey is participating in a marsh restoration project near the birthplace of our National Anthem.  Full Story.

• The National Geodetic Survey's 2002 METCON summer students were honored at a banquet.  Full Story.



• The National Geodetic Survey's CORS data Contributes to 'Earth-Moving' Study.  Full Story.

• NGS is helping Haiti establish its first Continuously Operating Reference (CORS) station.  Full Report.



• On June 11, the National Ocean Service (NOS) awarded an $800,000 grant to Louisiana State University to establish the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center. This Center will serve as a partner with NOAA in serving the state's geospatial needs. Louisiana is experiencing the highest rate of land loss in the world, and a recent Report to Congress illuminated the need for height modernization in the state. One of the first priorities for the Center is to develop a new network of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) to give Louisiana statewide coverage.

  In support of this endeavor, NGS is conducting training and workshops in the use of the CORS network and GPS-based height modernization in Louisiana the week of June 24. NOS representatives will also present seminars and overviews to the surveying community, state and Federal agencies, and local governments. For more information, please contact  Tim Osborn




• On June 12, 2002, NOS' National Geodetic Survey hosted the bimonthly meeting of the Federal Geographic Data Committee, Standards Working Group. Representatives from 10 different Federal agencies, as well as several universities and contracting companies, attended to coordinate development of Federal geospatial data standards. Topics of the meeting included: approval of the document for accuracy standards for nautical charting hydrographic surveys; a summary of the review process for the extensions for remote sensing metadata; and updates on the Geospatial One-Stop E-gov initiative. For more information, please contact  Joe.Evjen



• Virginia is the latest state to set a geodetic marker commemorating its Center of Population as determined by the 2000 U.S. Census.  Full Report.

• Update of Feburary 2002 item: NGS, in partnership with the University of Puerto Rico, completed the initial phase of a comprehensive surveying project in Puerto Rico.  Full Report.

March 2002

• CORS Supports Crustal Motion Study
  

  Earthquake scientists at the US Geological Survey analyzed GPS data observed between 1996 and 2000 for 62 CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Stations) distributed throughout the central and eastern United States. Their results suggest that no significant horizontal crustal motion occurs in this part of the country, except possibly in the region encompassing that part of the Mississippi River which is located south of Illinois. Here, points appear to be moving southward relative to the rest of the continent at an average rate of 1.7 mm/yr, with a standard error of 0.9 mm/yr. While this rate is not statistically significant, the fact that the motion occurs near New Madrid, MO--where earthquake risk is thought to be high--argues that the motion may be real.  Full Report (PDF).

• Oklahoma Society of Land Surveyors ponder: "To OPUS or Not to OPUS..."
  Full Story