Paladin2 wrote: “Is this a revenue issue or a full employment act for surveyors?”
This can be a real issue for things like taxation or who owns what property.
It’s fairly common. For example, the border between Tn. and Al. looks like a straight line until you zoom in enough, then it looks like the blade of a saw.
Some of the older property deeds includ statements like, ‘on a line between the pine tree and the oak tree’, neither of which still exist today.
When they re-marked the section corners across my county, I got to ride along with the surveyors. In the back of the van, they had a bunch of old books and maps. I saw for myself the description of the location of one of the corner coins.
“approximately 4 ft ENE of a 24 inch pine with an 8 inch oak nearby.”
I’ll be danged if they didn’t find a big old pine stump next to a 30 inch live oak tree with a bronze disc on a steel spike buried about 6 inches under the surface in the middle of a forest.
Sure they used GPS and a metal detector, but they started looking about 6 ft from the spot without turning on the GPS locator.
Incredible.
Maps are flat.
Da Erf is nearly a sphere.
Surveyors have long been in a difficult position to resolve the difference between the two.