John Halleck's Introduction to Survey Adjustment:
Lo, for the day came that my eyes were opened to the need for a Glossary
for this paper. And it came to pass that I wrote:
- Adjustment
-
Fudging the survey data (by extremely fancy and esoteric mathematical
techniques) so that errors and blunders are no longer obvious. (This
is believed to be more ritually pure than showing the data as it is.)
- Anomaly
-
Something that forces a measurement to be off. For example,
a magnetic anomaly forces magnetic north to be off at a station.
- Azimuth
-
Angle measured clockwise from north to a survey point.
(called bearing in the UK)
- Beer
-
In Austria: Caver food.
In the UK: Caver Beverage.
In the US: Caver refreshment.
In Utah: A vile sinful drink rumored to be used by people who
live somewhere else.
- Bearing
-
In the US, an angled measured by a quadrant and an angle, such
as S25E. (In the UK this means the same as Azimuth in the US.)
- Blunder
-
A major mistake. Reading 25 degrees as 24 degrees is a minor error.
Writing 225 degrees for 25 degrees is a blunder.
- Cave
-
A lack of rock that exerts a strong attractive pull on cavers.
- Cavers
-
A special type of person who is not only not smart enough to
come in out of the rain, but who is often found underground standing
in waterfalls.
- Closure error
-
The difference, when surveying a loop, between the station you
start with and the final location you get for it.
There are two kinds of closure error, angular misclosure (almost
never talked about) and the distance vector of the misclosure (commonly
given).
- Error
-
A minor mistake. (See Blunder) Errors are assumed to be random.
- Floating shot
-
A survey shot not connected to the rest of the survey.
- Least Squares
-
One of the fancy mathematical techniques for fudging survey data.
It has a specific claim to fame of being statistically likely to
to produce a result that could represent some sort of reality
with a high probability.
- Little Brush Creek Cave
-
An evil sadism incarnate. This lack of rock is often seen torturing cavers
in Utah.
- Loop
-
A collection of survey shots from a survey point that return
to that same survey point.
- Net
-
A collection of traverses, usually tied together in a manner more complex
than a simple loop.
- Process a Survey
-
Attempt to produce plausible data from the clearly unreasonable
numbers that cavers collect in caves.
- Shot
-
The measurements made between to survey points.
- Station
-
A survey point. A place where measurements are taken.
- Survey
-
To collect, in a cave, numbers that claim to describe the cave,
but which are usually not even self consistent.
- Survey Point
-
A reference location in a cave survey.
- Survey Shot
-
Measurements between one survey point and the next.
- String
-
Traverse. Cavers using this term should be publicly shamed.
- Traverse
-
A survey connecting points along the survey route.
- UK
-
A collection of islands separated from the US by a common language.
A favorite destination for Americans sailing across the Atlantic in
bathtubs or other interesting vehicles.
- US
-
A collection of states (supposedly united) separated from the UK by a
common language.
The world's leading exporter of bizarre cave survey terminology.
The only country in the world that has world championship competitions
without inviting anybody from any other country.
- Utah
-
One of the states of the United States.
Go to ...
This page is http://www.cc.utah.edu/~nahaj/cave/survey/intro/glossary.html
© Copyright 2000 by John Halleck, All Rights Reserved.
This snapshot was last modified on August 23rd, 2000
And the underlying file was last modified on May 11th, 2000