ArcMap systems a go!

I have been getting more confident using the Cultural Resources GIS database. It is a challenge to understand which labels housing properties would fall under. Not all fall in the same category or is black and white. There are many properties which are being reviewed for demolition. There was a case where I was researching a site and making sure the properties fell in the same locations on the historical maps obtained in the documents. I compared it using Google Maps. It took me a little while to match up the houses and structures. The documents also came with photographs. Looking at the photographs I could pinpoint the exact grounds they were all located in. After a close look with some of the sites, I figured out that some farm storage sheds were completely demolished before the PHMC could draw a conclusion if the structures were eligible or not. With that, I added to the database that the farm sheds were completely demolished and was told that it is common when structures are reviewed to be demolished. There is nothing which can be done though. In addition to learning more in depth to the cultural resources, I attended a meeting to understand how the PHMC's budget system works. They also addressed, the Pennsylvania State Archives will be moved to another facility which is yet to be built. The archives tower will be replaced with The State Museum's artifacts for extra storage room. The site of the new archives will be very close to HACC's Wildwood campus. It is across from Cameron Street and somewhere next to the USPS building. I am disappointed though because I always saw the State Archives as a facility in full collaboration with the museum. With it going to a new spot, it would be awfully more difficult to travel back and forth. I liked the idea of having Pennsylvania's history in one spot. Change is inevitable so I guess I have to look at the positives this change will present. In addition, ArcMap is now completely installed (finally) and I have already begun georeferencing a large historical map of Warren County's oil fields. It was in a total of nine pieces. It was a challenge to match up the points because the roads and natural landmarks such as lakes, streams, or swamps were out of proportion due to the fact that it was hand drawn and the person rendering used information based on various people's accounts. Overall I matched up the map the best I could and I think it is a good result for this project.

Getting down to business...

Sorry for the delay in posts, the main GIS project didn't begin until now. Within the past couple of weeks I was assigned to map out the historical oil fields within the Alleghany National Forest. To accomplish this, printed copies of documents had to be organized to look up as a reference. The next step is to use these documents and compare them to various historical maps of oil fields which are stored inside the Pennsylvania State Archives. Before I got into the project, Tom invited me to attend an all-day oil and gas summit which was to help me learn how significant oil and gas is for the state of Pennsylvania. Various agencies from the state such as the Game Commission, DCNR, DEP, and the USGS were there. From what I have learned, Pennsylvania has many precious natural landmarks and resources some of which is more unique than many other states. For example, Devil's Den and The Hickory Run Boulder Field are very unique formations. None of which will be found in other states. After the summit, Tom and I went into the archives to find historical oil fields in the Alleghany National Forest. I looked on the archive's online database for historical maps I figured would have significant information for the project. After extensive searching, I typed up a list of the maps we needed and gave it to the archive manager. Once obtained, it took about a half-hour to figure out all the maps which were useful and not useful. I had to look hard at some of them to determine if they were significant. The data pertaining to oil fields was not all the same. Some were portrayed as dots while others had slightly shaded circles. It threw a curve in my head thinking the polygon circles could be a potential site. I looked harder at other maps and found out that there were fields labeled by company. I felt more confident understanding and picking out the data I needed on my own. Tom helped me a lot too, but I truly felt I took a larger step in understanding how to find data. Once we figured out the maps we needed and did not need, they were scanned and automatically sent into one of our computer drives. The maps will be georeferenced into ArcMap so the points can be plotted. Unfortunately, ArcMap had not yet been installed on our computers. I used ArcMap on a virtual machine but it kept freezing up and was only fortunate to georeference only one map. I has told ArcMap will be installed and running this week on the server. It is sad to say the project has been temporarily paused. Along side the Allegheny National Forest project, me and the other Keystone Interns got a tour of the state capitol in the past week. The tour guide told us the Capitol was completely restored around twenty years ago for an effort to restore its historical significance. Before the restoration, walls were leaking and one of the large paintings near the dome was pealing off. The marble throughout the building was yellowed due to the legalization of smoking inside for many years. There is a video link below about the Capitol Rotunda's restoration. In addition to the tour, I also got to see an archaeological dig or Fort Shirley. Located near Shirleysburg in Huntington County, Fort Shirley was a defense fort used by British America during the French and Indian War. The site surprisingly was on a private farmland and the owners were nice enough to allow Penn State to do excavation which started in 2009. There were scattered excavations throughout the property. Some of the artifacts recovered were indian arrowheads, British flint, and a coin from the 1700's. There was also evidence in the soil from trenches that indians dug around the fort. Deep down there were decayed remains of wooden posts used in the fort's outer walls. With the posts and the trenches, the excavator's were able to draw a rough outline sketch of the size and shape of Fort Shirley. From what I was told this is one of the very few significant archaeological excavated sites anyone will find in Pennsylvania. Photos are also posted.




Capitol Rotunda Restoration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2VtetVQ0fc

The Pennsylvania Museum Commission has obtained many records of specific sites within the Allegheny National Forest. These sites contain evidence found of possible archaeological sites. It is the duty of the PHMC (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission) to tell agencies or other organizations who might have potential plans for construction where not to build or where it intersects possible damage to rich nature habitats. There is a problem with this, most archaeological locations and records are not entered in the database of the PHMC. Most records go back to the 1980's and would take forever for state workers to figure out if construction sites are safe. Locations also need to be entered in the PHMC's Cultural Resource Database using GIS (Geographical Information Systems). Several interns including myself are working on the project this summer to help clean up the mess and begin organizing it. To begin, the other I have started looking through stacks of documents and sorting out which archaeological findings are considered as actual "sites" and which are non-sites. There are so many conditions to make a finding a site, probably even more than I will ever get to know. There is some basics which I have learned regarding an old architectural artifact. A building as to be at least fifty years old in order to be considered historical and must contain at least three objects within fifteen meters of each other. The staff are trained experts in archaeology so they know by reading the documents how the classify them so we can enter the correct data into the system. Eventually, the staff will assign me a specific project based on entering in data into the server and mapping of historic oil fields within the Allegheny Forest. Not only will it be beneficial in understanding where the sites are but it will also benefit the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) in understanding how all the wells within specific areas and even as a whole correlates together. While this is all part of the Keystone Internship program, the staff at the PHMC have given the opportunity for interns to attend specific meetings and tours regarding the functions and history of Pennsylvania for everyone to understand what the museum stands for and the rich history it all surrounds all of us. During the orientation meeting, all the interns were given a tour of the museum and all of its compounds. In addition, we got to tour the rooms where artifacts are all stored and cleaned. The State Archives works with the PHMC in storing documents and records. We got to see archive tower and one of the various levels of document preservation. I have learned the storage facility stays dark for a reason and its to preserve the paper inside. Some documents in the archives contain very specific data from certain events, for example there are thorough health documents of people around the TMI (Three Mile Island) incident. This is all the more reason why information like this needs to be preserved, so records can be easily found if health records can be compared to effects of similar events. Other various documents are submitted on Ancestry.com so people can trace relatives, etc. Overall this is a great beginning and I am very excited to spend my summer at the PHMC!