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
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