Of all the NGS markers I've seen, the one by Bear Down is the unusual one in
that it is mounted in concrete flush with ground level.  Most of them I've
seen have been mounted in concrete pedestals between about 6 and 12 inches
tall and either cylindrical or square.  Once you get close enough to see
them, they are usually obvious, but often the site description is out of date
or inadequate to actually find them.  Most of the lower resolution
coordinates claim only +/-6 arcsecond resolution, but I've rarely seen one
off by more than about 1 arcsecond on either longitude or latitude, so the
GPSR should get you within eyeball distance of the marker - perhaps 100 feet
or so (but of course, some are hard to see under the scrub bushes and so on).  
The description page should tell you whether the marker is on a concrete
pedestal and how tall it is or if it is cemented to the top of a boulder or
some other mount.  I'd say about 1 in 5 of the markers I've hunted for could
not be found and most of those probably destroyed (i.e. the site has been
greatly disturbed since emplacement).  Also, most witness posts near the
markers have been destroyed or removed, at least for the ones emplaced
between 50 and 65 years ago out west of the Tucson Mountains..

Jim.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Scott Wood wrote:

> At 05:38 PM 3/1/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >This one is actually very interesting to do.  I looked into this one a week
> >ago, went to the website they point out for looking up the Geodetic markers,
> >and one of them came up .1 miles away.  It was pretty intersting.
> 
> I have one that is about .3 miles from my house that I have looked for a 
> couple times.  There has been some landscaping in the area over the years 
> but I suspect it is still there.  It might be under some red gravel, but I 
> don't think they would have removed it.  One of these days I will take a 
> metal detector out there and look.
> In liberty,
> 
> Scott
> 
> wood@myblueheaven.com
> www.myblueheaven.com
> 
> 
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> 

Jim Scotti                              
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory         jscotti@pirl.lpl.arizona.edu 
University of Arizona                
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/