Boundaries & Land Rights
Four Million Acres: The Scale and Legacy of the Disston Purchase
Four million acres for $1 million: the scale of the Disston purchase and how its land, companies and investments…
Featured Story
Introducing the Lost Surveyor Map Archive
A digital map archive is taking shape at Lost Surveyor, with Florida at its center, carefully attributed sources and tools for looking closely at the history on each sheet.
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Boundaries & Land Rights
Record the Sketch: Why a Legal Description Needs Its Drawing
When a sketch has already been prepared with a legal description, recording only the words leaves useful work behind.…
Boundaries & Land Rights
Andrew Ellicott: Drawing America’s Southern Line
From Washington’s future streets to the border of Spanish Florida, Andrew Ellicott turned national ambitions into lines on the…
Boundaries & Land Rights
Cooley’s Essay: Why Better Measurements Don’t Automatically Move Boundaries
Thomas Cooley’s enduring essay asks surveyors to recover established boundaries, investigate the evidence, and recognize the limits of a…
Tools & Technology
GPS Modernization Is More Than a Satellite: What GAO’s New Audit Uncovered
A surveyor using a GNSS receiver.
Measuring the World
Clocks as Surveying Instruments: Relativistic Geodesy and the Shape of Earth
Optical atomic clocks can sense differences in gravitational potential, opening a path toward measuring physical height through the rate…
Measuring the World
When Coordinates Expire: Surveying on a Moving Continent
Precise coordinates are tied to both a reference frame and a date because tectonic plates, earthquakes, subsidence, and other…
Measuring the World
Why Elevation Follows Gravity: The Geoid Beneath Every Height
GNSS measures height above a mathematical ellipsoid, but practical elevation depends on gravity, the geoid, and a physical definition…
Maps & Mapping
Surveying Beneath Ice: Mapping Continents Hidden From View
Airborne radar, satellite altimetry, GNSS, gravity, and decades of field surveys reveal the mountains, canyons, lakes, and basins concealed…