Wellington Chain Mark

A colleague/friend of mine has just moved to Wellington.  The first contact I've had with him since he's arrived was in the form of a set of 3 photos from him over the weekend.  This is the Wellington Chain Mark.


This mark ensured that all land surveyors used the same length chain.  What I can't work out from the info in this poster is if the standard was just one link, or a complete Gunters chain of 100 links, roughly 20m.  It looks as if it's just one link which I would have thought too short to give the accuracy needed.  Or am I missing something?

It would have been nice if I'd actually taken the photos myself (!) but at least my blog gets out and about around the world even if I'm often parked on my sofa.

Happy International Map Year!

Did you know 2015 is International Map Year?  No, suspect not.  It was deemed IMY by the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).  It's a wonderful idea but not much seems to be happening.  Check out the events page with its offering of 3 events this year.  Hmm, they are all conferences which are happening anyway.  And we've missed an earlier event this year on 01 Jan...

I very much hope it gets going and generates a buzz.

Meanwhile, my next excitement when I'm up in London in Feb will be to visit this exhibition at Somerset House, Mapping the City.  It looks fun.  And an awesome venue too.

A Swampy Christmas

A surveying friend of mine was in Florida for the festive season and sent me a few holiday snaps.

Like this isn't just crying out to be discovered?

And then I saw this addition to his geo photo collection....

Let's hope the survey marker never gets below high tide.