Sec. Seaton to dedicate new Menlo U.S. Geological Survey mapping unit
Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton will dedicate the new unit of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park at ceremonies late this month.
This one-million-dollar building will be open for public tours after talks by Seaton and dignitaries. Date of the dedication has not yet been announced.
The new structure is the third unit of the Pacific Coast center which the USGS is locating in the Linfield Oaks section of Menlo Park. Maps for the eight Western states, including Hawaii, are drawn in the two story, glass rimmed structure.
MINERAL AND water resources data is gathered from the other two buildings in the center at 4 Homewood Pl. The USGS now employees 589 people at the center, but expects to increase the staff to nearly 700 by the end of the fiscal year.
The USGS moved its topographic division from Sacramento to Menlo Park in August when the new building was completed. The structure at 345 Middlefield Rd. was especially designed for map making.
The 85,530-square-foot building is reached by a circular drive. A $1,048,900 contract was awarded for construction of the unit.
The division will ultimately be headquarters for 500 employees--about 200 more than the present staff. The topographic division mapped 25,000 square miles last year, completing about 100 maps. Accuracy is maintained to a thousandth of an inch.
INFORMATION for selecting sites for dams, bridges, communications lines and highway relocations is drawn from the maps. The data is acquired by field parties operating in Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, California, and Utah.
Survey crews are now working across the bay near Oakland. They may soon be bringing maps of the Peninsula up to date, according to Robert O. Davis, Pacific region engineer for the topographic division.
Data is gathered on the ground and from the air. The basic map network comes from control points taken on the ground, while aerial photographs furnish information on terrain.
The facts compiled in the field are put together in Menlo Park by half a million dollars worth of complicated instruments. Among the mapmakers’ tools a $25,000 cartographic camera.
OTHER INSTRUMENTS are used to piece together the aerial photographs so that they are consistent with the basic ground control points. Contours in the earth’s surface are drawn by plotting instruments.
USGS data is coordinated with information compiled by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, which is often confused with the USGS.
Cartographers compile, scribe, field check and edit the final map manuscript.
Topographic maps of western areas are available for sale in the new building.
Palo Alto California
November 4, 1959
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