U.S. National Geodetic Survey

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Closeup of a geodetic survey marker

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS), formerly the United States Survey of the Coast (1807-1836), United States Coast Survey (1836-1878), and United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) (1878-1970), is a United States federal agency that defines and manages a national coordinate system, providing the foundation for transportation and communication; mapping and charting; and a large number of applications of science and engineering. Since its foundation in its present form in 1970, it has been part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), of the United States Department of Commerce.

As the U.S. Coast Survey and U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the agency operated a fleet of survey ships, and from 1917 the Coast and Geodetic Survey was one of the uniformed services of the United States with its own corps of commissioned officers. Upon the creation of the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) in 1965, the commissioned corps was separated from the Survey to become the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps (or "ESSA Corps"). Upon the creation of NOAA in 1970, the ESSA Corps became the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps (or "NOAA Corps"), and the operation of ships was separated from the new National Geodetic Survey and transferred to the new NOAA fleet. Thus, the National Geodetic Survey's ancestor organizations are also the ancestors of today's NOAA Corps and are among the ancestors of today's NOAA fleet. In addition, today's National Institute of Standards and Technology, although long since separated from the Survey, got its start as the Survey's Office of Weights and Measures.

Purpose and function

The National Geodetic Survey maintains the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), "a consistent coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, and orientation throughout the United States."[1] NGS is responsible for defining the NSRS and its relationship with the International Terrestrial Reference Frame. NGS is a program office of the National Ocean Service, a line office of NOAA.

Current projects

History

Earliest years

Logo celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States Survey of the Coast.

The original predecessor agency of the NGS was the United States Survey of the Coast, created by Congress in 1807 to conduct a "Survey of the Coast".[2][3] This organization, the United States Government's first scientific agency,[3] represented the Jefferson administration's interest in science and stimulation of international trade. The Jackson administration expanded and extended the Survey of the Coast's scope and organization.[4]: 468  Progress was slow and fitful during the first 25 years. Not until August 29, 1811, did F. R. Hassler sail for Europe to purchase the proper instruments. He remained in Europe during the War of 1812, and then he returned to the United States, arriving on August 16, 1815.

Hassler's plan was to employ triangulation to establish his system. Work began in the vicinity of New York City in 1816. The first baseline was measured and verified in 1817. A further Act of Congress in 1818 interfered with Hassler's work. The United States Army and United States Navy were placed in charge of the survey work. This generated a lull in activity which lasted from 1818 to 1832. The Survey of the Coast existed without a superintendent during the 14 years from 1818 to 1832.

Little work was carried out until another Federal law was enacted on July 10, 1832, that renewed the original law of 1807. Also in 1832, Hassler was reappointed as the Survey's superintendent, and an Office of Weights of Measures, the ancestor of today's National Institute of Standards and Technology, was formed under the control of the Survey of the Coast.[3] The Survey of the Coast resumed field work in April 1833.

Association with United States Navy

The U.S. Department of the Navy was given the control of the Survey of the Coast from 1834 to 1836, but the U.S. Department of the Treasury resumed the administration of the Survey on March 26, 1836. The Survey of the Coast was renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836.[3]

Sigsbee Sounding Machine - invented by Charles Dwight Sigsbee and modified from Thomson Sounding Machine. Basic design of ocean sounding instruments stayed the same for the next 50 years. Here the sounding machine is used to set a Pillsbury current meter at a known depth. In: The Gulf Stream, by John Elliott Pillsbury, 1891. Note caption on photo: "Sounding Machine And Current Meter In Place, Steamer Blake"

The Navy retained close connection with the hydrographic efforts of the Coast Survey under law requiring Survey ships to be commanded and crewed by naval officers and men when the Navy could provide such support.[5] Under this system many of the most famous names in hydrography for both the Survey and Navy of the period are linked. It was while attached to Coast Survey that Lieutenant Commander Charles Dwight Sigsbee, USN, Assistant in the Coast Survey,[Note 1] surveyed, developed his sounding machine and commanded the ship Blake during the first true bathymetric surveys in the Gulf of Mexico. Survey civilians were also assigned to the ships, along with famous scientist of the day, such as Alexander Agassiz, for technical operations.[6]

That system remained effective until changed under appropriation law approved June 6, 1900 to the effect that beginning July 1, 1900 "all necessary employees to man and equip the vessels" were funded as opposed to the previous scheme using naval personnel. By prearrangement all naval personnel would remain with the ships until the first call at the home port where the transfer would be made with the Survey reimbursing Navy for pay after July 1 for those personnel.[7]

Growth years

Professor Alexander Dallas Bache became superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey after the death of Hassler in 1843.[3] Earlier in his life, Bache had established the first magnetic observatory. During his years as superintendent, he expanded Coast Survey's work southward along the Atlantic coast into the Florida Keys and along the Pacific Coast. In 1845, he instituted the world's first systematic oceanographic project for studying a specific phenomenon when he directed the Coast Survey to begin systematic studies of the Gulf Stream and its environs, including physical oceanography, geological oceanography, biological oceanography,and chemical oceanography. Bache's initial orders for the Gulf Stream study served as a model for all subsequent integrated oceanographic cruises.[3] Bache also instituted regular and systematic observations of the tides and investigated magnetic forces and directions.

During the nineteenth century, the remit of the Survey was rather loosely drawn and it had no competitors in federally funded scientific research. Various Superintendents developed its work in fields as diverse as astronomy, cartography, meteorology, geodesy, geology, geophysics, hydrography, navigation, oceanography, exploration, pilotage, tides and topography. The Survey published important articles by Charles Sanders Peirce on the design of experiments and on a criterion for the statistical treatment of outliers.[8] [9] For example, from 1836 until the establishment of the National Bureau of Standards in 1901, the Survey was responsible for weights and measures throughout the United States.

The Coast Pilot[Note 2] had long been lacking in current information. The Coast Survey had recognized that deficit but been hindered by lack of funding and risks associated with mooring vessels in deep waters or along dangerous coasts in order to collect the information. Congress specifically appropriated funding for such work in the 1875-1876 budget under which the 76 foot schooner Drift was constructed and sent out under Acting Master Robert Platt, USN, Assistant Coast Survey, to the Gulf of Maine to anchor in depths of up to 140 fathoms (840 feet/256 meters) to measure currents.[10] The Survey's requirement led to early development of current measurement technology, particularly the Pillsbury current meter invented by John E. Pillsbury, USN while on duty with the survey. It was in connection with intensive studies of the Gulf Stream that the ship George S. Blake became such a pioneer in oceanography that she is one of only two U.S. ships with her name inscribed in the façade of the Oceanographic Museum (Musée Océanographique), Monaco due to its being "the most innovative oceanographic vessel of the Nineteenth Century" with development of deep ocean exploration through introduction of steel cable for sounding, dredging and deep anchoring and data collection for the "first truly modern bathymetric map of a deep sea area."[11]

On June 21, 1860, the greatest loss of life in a single incident in the history of NOAA and its ancestor agencies occurred when a commercial schooner collided with the Coast Survey paddle steamer Robert J. Walker in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Robert J. Walker sank with the loss of 20 men.[12][13]

American Civil War

Survey of the Mississippi River below Forts Jackson and St. Philip to prepare for the bombardment of the forts by Porters mortar fleet. Plan done by the U.S. Coast Survey.[14]

The outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861 caused a dramatic shift in direction for the Coast Survey. All U.S. Army officers were withdrawn from the Survey, as were all but two U.S. Navy officers. Since most men of the Survey had Union sympathies, most stayed on with the Survey rather than resigning to serve the Confederate States of America, and their work shifted in emphasis to support of the U.S. Navy and Union Army. Civilian Coast Surveyors were called upon to serve in the field and provide mapping, hydrographic, and engineering expertise for Union forces. One of the individuals who excelled at this work was Joseph Smith Harris, who supported Rear Admiral David G. Farragut and his Western Gulf Blockading Squadron in the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip in 1862; this survey work was particularly valuable to Commander David Dixon Porter and his mortar bombardment fleet. Coast Surveyors served in virtually all theaters of the war and were often in the front lines or in advance of the front lines carrying out mapping duties, and Coast Survey officers produced many of the coastal charts and interior maps used by Union forces throughout the war. Coast Surveyors supporting the Union Army were given assimilated military rank while attached to a specific command, but those supporting the U.S. Navy operated as civilians and ran the risk of being executed as spies if captured by the Confederates while working in support of Union forces.[15][3]

Later 19th century and early 20th century

The seal of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

Army officers never returned to the Coast Survey, but after the war Navy officers did, and the Coast Survey resumed its peacetime duties. The acquisition of the Territory of Alaska in 1867 expanded its responsibilities, as did the progressive exploration, settlement, and enclosure of the continental United States.[2][15] In 1871, Congress officially expanded the Coast Survey's responsibilities to include geodetic surveys in the interior of the country,[2][15][3] and one of its first major projects in the interior was to survey the 39th Parallel across the entire country. Between 1874 and 1877, the Coast Survey employed the naturalist and author John Muir as a guide and artist during the survey of the 39th Parallel in the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah.[3] To reflect its acquisition of the mission of surveying the U.S. interior and the growing role of geodesy in its operations, the U.S. Coast Survey was renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) in 1878.[2][15][3]

With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, the U.S. Navy again withdrew its officers from Coast and Geodetic Survey duty, and it never assigned them to duty with the Survey again. As a result of the war, which ended in August 1898, the United States took control of the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico, and surveying their waters became part of the Coast and Geodetic Survey's duties.[15] The Survey opened a field office in Seattle, Washington in 1899, to support survey ships operating in the Pacific Ocean as well as survey field expeditions in the western United States; this office eventually would become the modern National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Marine Center.[3]

In 1901, the Office of Weights and Measures was split off from the Coast and Geodetic Survey to become the separate National Bureau of Standards. It became the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988.[16]

World War I

Although some personnel aboard Coast and Geodetic Survey ship wore uniforms virtually identical to those of the U.S. Navy, the Survey operated as a completely civilian organization until after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. To avoid the dangerous situation Coast Survey personnel had faced during the American Civil War, when they could have been executed as spires if captured by the enemy, a new Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps was created on 22 May 1917, giving the Survey's officers a commissioned status that protected them from treatment as spies if captured, as well as providing the United States armed forces with a ready source of officers skilled in surveying that could be rapidly assimilated for wartime support of the armed forces.[15]

Over half of all Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officers served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps during World War I, and Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel were active as artillery orienteering officers, as minelaying officers in the North Sea (where they supprted the laying of the North Sea Mine Barrage), as troop transport navigators, as intelligence officers, and on the staff of General John "Black Jack" Pershing.[15]

Interwar period

During the period between the world wars, the Coast and Geodetic Survey returned to its peaceful scientific and surveying pursuits, including land surveying, sea floor charting, coastline mapping, geophysics, and oceanography.[15] In 1923 and 1924, it began the use of acoustic sounding systems and developed radio acoustic ranging, which was the first marine navigation system in history that did not rely on a visual means of position determination. These developments led to the Survey's 1924 discovery of the sound fixing and ranging (SOFAR) channel or deep sound channel (DSC) – a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum – and to the development of telemetering radio sonobuoys and and marine seismic exploration techniques.[16] The Air Commerce Act, which went into effect on May 20, 1926, among other things directed that the airways of the United States be charted for the first time and assigned this mission to the Coast and Geodetic Survey.[16]

In 1933, the Coast and Geodetic Survey opened a ship base in Norfolk, Virginia. From 1934 to 1937, it organized surveying parties and field offices to employ over 10,000 people, including many unemployed engineers, during the height of the Great Depression.[16]

World War II

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, all of this work was suspended as the Survey dedicated its activities entirely to support of the war effort. Over half of the Coast and Geodetic Corps commissioned officers were transferred to either the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or United States Army Air Forces, while those who remained in the Coast and Geodetic Survey also operated in support of military and naval requirements. About half of the Survey's civilian work force, slightly over 1,000 people, joined the armed services.[15]

Officers and civilians of the Survey saw service in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific and in the defense of North America and its waters, serving as artillery surveyors, hydrographers, amphibious engineers, beachmasters, instructors at service schools, and in a wide range of technical positions. Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel also worked as reconnaissance surveyors for a worldwide aeronautical charting effort, and a Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officer was the first commanding officer of the Army Air Forces Aeronautical Chart Plant at St. Louis, Missouri. Coast and Geodetic Survey civilians who remained in the United States during the war produced over 100 million maps and charts for the Allied forces. Three Coast and Geodetic Survey officers and eleven members of the agency who had joined other services were killed during the war.[15]

Post-World War II

Following World War II, the Coast and Geodetic Survey resumed its peacetime scientific and surveying efforts. In 1945 it adapted the British Royal Air Force's Gee radio navigation system to hydrographic surveying, ushering in a new era of marine electronic navigation. In 1948 in established the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu Hawaii.[16] The onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s led the Survey also to make a significant effort in support of defense requirements, such as conducting surveys for the Distant Early Warning Line and for rocket ranges, performing oceanographic work for the U.S. Navy, and monitoring nuclear tests.[16]

In 1955, the Coast and Geodetic Survey ship USC&GS Pioneer (OSS 31) conducted a survey in the Pacific Ocean off the United States West Coast towing a magnetometer invented by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. The first such survey in history, it discovered magnetic striping on the seafloor, a key finding in the development of the theory of plate tectonics.[16]

The Coast and Geodetic Survey participated in the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. During the IGY, 67 countries cooperate in a worldwide effort to collect, share, and study data on eleven Earth sciences – aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations for precision mapping, meteorology, oceanography, seismology, and solar activity.[16]

In 1959, the Coast and Geodetic Survey's charter was extended to give it the responsibility for U.S. Government oceanographic studies worldwide.[15] In 1963, it became the first U.S. Government scientific agency to take part in an international cooperative oceanographic/meteorological project when the survey ship USC&GS Explorer (OSS 28) made a scientific cruise in support of the EQUALANT I and EQUALANT II subprojects of the International Cooperative Investigations of the Tropical Atlantic (ICITA) project.[17][18][19] A Coast and Geodetic Survey ship operated in the Indian Ocean for the first time in 1964, when Pioneer participated in the International Indian Ocean Expedition.[20]

ESSA and NOAA years

On 13 July 1965, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), was established and became the new parent organization of both the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the United States Weather Bureau.[2][16] At the same time, the Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps was removed from the Survey's direct control and replaced by a new Environmental Science Services Administration Corps, or "ESSA Corps," that reported directly to ESSA but retained the responsibility of providing commissioned officers to man Coast and Geodetic Survey ships.[2][15][16]

On 3 October 1970, ESSA was expanded and reorganized to form the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Coast and Geodetic Survey ceased to exist as it merged with other government scientific agencies to form NOAA, but its constituent parts lived on, with its geodetic responsibilities assigned to the new National Geodetic Survey and its ships to the new NOAA fleet, while the ESSA Corps became the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, or "NOAA Corps". The National Geodetic Survey and the NOAA fleet both fell under control of NOAA's National Ocean Service.[2][15]

Frank Manly Thorn served as 6th Superintendent of the USC&GS.
Rear Admiral Henry Arnold Karo served as the 4th head of USC&GS.
The USC&GS oceanographic research ship Pathfinder was re-commissioned as a US Navy vessel during World War II.

Leadership

Superintendents (1816–1919)

  1. Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, (1816–1818 and 1832–1843)
  2. Alexander Dallas Bache, (1843–1865)
  3. Benjamin Peirce, (1867–1874)
  4. Carlile Pollock Patterson, (1874–1881)
  5. Julius Erasmus Hilgard, (1881–1885)
  6. Frank Manly Thorn, was the first non-scientist to head USC&GS (1885–1889)
  7. Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, (1889–1894)
  8. William Ward Duffield, (1894–1897)
  9. Henry Smith Pritchett, (1897–1900)
  10. Otto Hilgard Tittmann, (1900–1915)
  11. Ernest Lester Jones, (1915–1919)

Directors (1919–1968)

  1. Ernest Lester Jones, (1919–1929)
  2. Raymond Stanton Patton, (1929–1937)
  3. Robert Francis Anthony Studds, (1938–1955)
  4. Henry Arnold Karo, (1955–1965)
  5. James C. Tison, Jr., (1965–1968)

Superintendents of Weights and Measures

Ships

See also: Category:Ships of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

A partial list of the Survey's ships:

The USC&GS ship Explorer in the Aleutian Islands in 1944.

Flag

The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey flag, in use from 1899 to 1970

The Coast and Geodetic Survey was authorized its own flag on 16 January 1899. The flag, which remained in use until the Survey merged with other agencies to form NOAA on 3 October 1970, was blue, with a central white circle and a red triangle centered within the circle. It was intended to symbolize the triangulation method used in surveying. The flag was flown by ships in commission with the Coast and Geodetic Survey at the highest point on the forwardmost mast, and served as a distinguishing mark of the Survey as a separate seagoing service from the Navy, with which the Survey shared a common ensign.

The NOAA service flag, in use today, was adapted from the Coast and Geodetic Survey flag by adding the NOAA emblem—a circle divided into two parts by the white silhouette of a flying seabird, with the roughly triangular portion above the bird being dark blue and the portion below it a lighter blue—to the center of the old Survey flag. The NOAA symbol lies entirely within the red triangle.[21]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The formal title given these officers in reports is for example: "Lieut. Commander John A. Howell, U.S.N., Assistant in the Coast Survey" with "Assistant" being a title for both high office and topographic survey management positions and ship's commanding officers.
  2. ^ The U.S. Coast Survey published its earliest version of the Coast Pilot as an appendix in the 1858 Coast Survey Report. Later, after the copyright to a private edition was sold to the United States in 1867 the Survey assumed the responsibility for regular publication.

References

  1. ^ ""National Geodetic Survey - What We Do"". National Geodetic Survey Website. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g NOAA, Coast and Geodetic Survey Heritage
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k noaa.gov NOAA History: NOAA Legacy Timeline 1807-1899
  4. ^ Howe, Daniel W. (2007). What hath God Wrought, The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-19-507894-7.
  5. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1877). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of The Survey During The Year 1874. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 3. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Alexander Agassiz (1888). "Three Cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer "Blake": In the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, and Along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880". Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston & New York. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  7. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1901). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of Work From July 1, 1900 To June 30, 1901. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 15, 17, 109. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ Peirce, Charles Sanders (1870 [published 1873]). "Appendix No. 21. On the Theory of Errors of Observation". Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey Showing the Progress of the Survey During the Year 1870: 200–224. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help). NOAA PDF Eprint (goes to Report p. 200, PDF's p. 215). U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Annual Reports links for years 1837–1965. Reprinted in Writings of Charles S. Peirce, v. 3, pp. 140–160.
  9. ^ Peirce, C. S. (1876 [published 1879]), "Appendix No. 14. Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research" in Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey Showing the Progress of the Survey for Fiscal Year Ending with June 1876, pp. 197–201, NOAA PDF Eprint, goes to p. 197, PDF's page 222. Reprinted in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, v. 7, paragraphs 139–157 and in Operations Research v. 15, n. 4, July–August 1967, pp. 643–648, abstract at JSTOR Peirce, C. S. (1967). "Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research". Operations Research. 15 (4): 643. doi:10.1287/opre.15.4.643.
  10. ^ U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1877). Report Of The Superintendent of the Coast And Geodetic Survey Showing The Progress Of The Work for the Fiscal Year Ending With June, 1877. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 9. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ "George S. Blake". NOAA History: Coast and Geodetic Survey Ships. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA Central Library. 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  12. ^ NOAA History, A Science Odyssey: Tools of the Trade: Ships: Coast and Geodetic Survey Ships: Robert J. Walker
  13. ^ noaa.gov The Story of the Coast Survey Steamer Robert J. Walker
  14. ^ Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, Series I, Volume 18, p.362.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NOAA History: NOAA Corps and the Coast and Geodetic Survey
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j noaa.gov NOAA History: NOAA Legacy Timeline 1900-1969
  17. ^ NOAA History, A Science Odyssey: Tools of the Trade: Ships: Coast and Geodetic Survey Ships: Explorer
  18. ^ nmfs.noaa.gov EQUALANT
  19. ^ nmfs.noaa.gov SHIP & CRUISE SUMMARY
  20. ^ NOAA History, A Science Odyssey: Tools of the Trade: Ships: Coast and Geodetic Survey Ships: Pioneer
  21. ^ Sea Flags: National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Administration at verizon

External links

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