Christopher J. Baltz (Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio)
APPLICATIONS OF GPS (GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEMS) TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY
In 1993, Gray & Pape, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, conducted Phases I and II cultural
resources investigations of an approximately 80-mile long pipeline right of-way,
a gas storage field composed of 139 well pad sites, three pipe storage yards,
186 access roads, and 30 miles of associated gathering-line right-of-way and staging
areas. These investigations were conducted for The Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company's
Kentucky Gas Storage Project. The Project which includes lands within ten different
counties in central and south-central Kentucky.
Survey proveniencing for this project was accomplished using GPS (Global Positioning
Systems), a satellite-based locational system developed by the U.S. Department
of Defense. GPS data was manipulated through GIS (Geographic Information Systems).
Archaeological information was integrated with all other GPS data (i.e., engineering
survey data, other environmental surveys, etc.) and was overlaid on digitized
USGS topographic maps, thus becoming an excellent planning tool. Because the archaeological
and environmental investigations were conducted prior to the conventional on-the-ground
survey, most of the potentially significant archaeological, botanical, biological,
and wetland sites were easily avoided through the rerouting of the pipeline.
The benefits of this technology were found to be in the precise recording of survey
activities (reduction of error to 2.0-5.0 meters) over a large survey area. The
benefits for the engineering stage of this project were enormous. [return to 1993 abstracts menu][continue to next]