Matching Items (4)
Description
Creation of the Matthes-Evans United States Geological Survey topographic map of the Grand Canyon was a herculean effort. It was the most impressive mapping activity to ever take place at the Grand Canyon, considering the surveying tools that were available at the time. Field work on the Matthes-Evans map began in 1902, but publication of the map did not occur until 1927. This was a 25 year effort, facing extremely challenging field conditions. This presentation will describe the surveying methods and tools used, and the field work required to prepare the Matthes-Evans Map. Extremely challenging terrain and climate made field work quite difficult. Matthes and others produced firsthand accounts that provide a historical record of the mapmaking effort and some of the trials and tribulations encountered by the surveyors. These sources, plus the author’s onsite visits to triangulation stations and benchmarks provide the basis for the story of the map’s creation.
ContributorsUpchurch, Jonathan (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-02-28
DescriptionOfficial program of the Mapping Grand Canyon Conference. Document was designed and optimized for digital dissemination and mobile device (smartphone, tablet) viewing and interactive browsing. Document was deliberately not printed in paper format with the intent of minimizing the event's ecological footprint through a reduction of paper and ink waste.
ContributorsWatson, Amy Carolyn (Compiler, Designer) / Toro, Matthew (Compiler, Cartographer) / Avila, Theresa (Contributor) / Field, Kenneth (Contributor) / Fry, Michael (Contributor) / Griffin, Dori (Contributor) / Kaplinski, Matt (Contributor) / Karlstrom, Karl (Contributor) / Manone, Mark (Contributor) / Oetting, Ed (Contributor) / Patterson, Tom (Contributor) / Quartaroli, Richard David (Contributor) / Runge, Peter (Contributor) / Semken, Steve (Contributor) / Smilovsky, Nikolas (Contributor) / Smith, Stephanie (Contributor) / Spindler, Rob (Contributor) / Trapido-Lurie, Barbara (Contributor) / Upchurch, Jonathan (Contributor) / Deitrick, Stephanie (Contributor) / Lemar, Shea (Contributor) / Messinger, Ellen Murray (Contributor) / Sherwood, Jill (Contributor) / Wilhelm, Karina (Contributor)
Created2019-02
Description
In 1923 an expedition left Lees Ferry with the intent of making an unbroken level survey line 251 miles through Grand Canyon. This expedition was led by the Chief Topographic Engineer of the USGS, Claude Birdseye. His handpicked crew consisted of four boatman, a rodman and a cook, who navigated four boats over 74 day to complete this remarkable task. Birdseye and his men also ran survey lines up prominent side canyons and were charged with perhaps the most important aspect of the mission, locating potential dam sites. The level line that was produced from this expedition and the accurate maps of eight potential dam sites started a dialogue that would frame and potentially tame the wild Colorado River running through the West. These maps were ultimately used to aid in the creation of multiple dams and water diversion projects. Today researchers continue to utilize several maps, photographs and survey points almost 100 years after they were collected.
ContributorsManone, Mark (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-03-01
Description
The intent of the 1869 river expedition of Major John Wesley Powell was to map the course of the Green River to its junction with the Colorado River, and then through the Grand Canyon, ending at Callville, Nevada, filling in somewhat terra incognita of the plateau country of the southwestern United States. Starting at Green River Station, Wyoming Territory, one of the four boats wrecked in the Cañon of Lodore, resulting in one crew member leaving the trip at the Uinta River. Weather, rapids, hard work portaging and lining boats and supplies, and other time-consuming activities curtailed much of the needed survey and mapping work. Loss of the maps due to wetting caused the need for them to be recreated. Even with that, plus broken barometers and wet chronometers and watches, at least one map remained so that Powell’s return river trip of 1871-72 could carry it with them, compare it with their longer-term surveying, and update the 1869 results. However, by the time they reached about river mile 240 in the Grand Canyon, Powell still could not tell how far west they had boated or how close they were to Callville. Because of that and other reasons, three men left the party at what has been named Separation Rapid and up Separation Canyon on the north rim. Powell and the remaining men exited Grand Canyon soon thereafter at the mouth of the Virgin River, not far above Callville; the three men perished somewhere on the Arizona Strip. This talk will cover how the men used their scientific instruments to survey and map, and speculate about what they knew of their location along their trip, focusing specifically on Grand Canyon.
ContributorsQuartaroli, Richard David (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-02-28