I love survey monuments (aka markers, aka marks). They get planted in the ground so that surveys can be done from exactly the same spot, at different times. If you measure from the same place over time, you can detect changes in ground position by comparing the surveys. If you don’t use the same place, you get bupkis*.

Walking the dog, I discovered that a neighbor has a monument on his property:

Interesting! According to the inscription, at one time the City of Los Angeles held sway over this area. (No longer.) And I didn’t know they printed the elevation on the monuments back then. Fancy!

I wonder if the neighbor got special instructions when he bought the house, forbidding him from messing with the monument. I wonder if that irritated him – gub’ment can’t tell me what to do! – or maybe he’s like me, and enjoys the connection with local history. Whoever first planted the monument is surely gone by now, the monument has been there for generations. Not all the monuments have led such sheltered lives. Monuments about a mile east got buried in a 1934 debris flow:

 

Admittedly, most surveys are done for boring reasons like defining property lines. But they can also reveal a region’s geology, its ground deformation – I love that term! – the movements related to earthquakes, subsidence, landslides. Given enough time, this monument will have quite a story to tell. After all, it’s because earthquakes are shoving the mountains skyward that I have a mountain view from my house:

 

Obviously I am fascinated by these hazards but it would be fine with me if, during my years in this house, I experience no geologic drama.

* Looking up this spelling, I discovered that bupkis means goat droppings! One really can learn something new every single day!

A recent WP Weekly Photo Challenge wanted to see a monument.