OR Land Surveyor case studies

OR Land Surveyor · Put your knowledge to work in context.

The Principles and Practice of Surveying (PS) exam is one of the NCEES examinations used within the U.S. surveying licensure process. The OR Land Surveyor case studies are 5 cases and about 3,854 words.

The Recorded Rebar vs. the Original Bearing Tree

You are retracing the east line of Section 14, T18S, R12E, W.M., on a 40-acre parcel under contract. The 1876 GLO notes call for a stone 18x12x4 inches with three grooves on the north face, and a 14-inch ponderosa pine bearing S 41°15' E, 22 links, scribed "14 BT." The stone is gone.

738 words, about 4 min 2

The River That Moved Overnight

A 38-acre parcel's east boundary is described in an 1893 deed as running "thence southwesterly to the thread of the Santiam River, thence down said river..." The reach is non-navigable and the record owner holds to the thread. In February 1996 a flood cut a new 320-foot-wide channel across a meander neck in roughly 36 hours, abandoning the old channel, which has since silted into a 4-foot-deep swale under second-growth ash.

751 words, about 4 min 3

Twenty-Six Years of a Fence in the Wrong Place

Two 5-acre parcels created by a 1978 partition plat share a north-south common line. A woven-wire fence with a planted Douglas-fir windbreak runs 7.4 feet west of the plat line over the full 660-foot depth.

803 words, about 4 min 4

Thirty Feet or Sixty: A Road Established in 1874

The county's 1938 road map shows a 60-foot right of way, dimensioned 60, tied to no monument, signed by the then-roadmaster. The paved surface today is 22 feet wide with 3-foot gravel shoulders.

794 words, about 4 min 5

The Easement That Describes Two Different Strips

A 1979 deed grants "a 20-foot easement for ingress and egress across the north 20 feet of the South Half of the Southwest Quarter of Section 8, T39S, R1W." The quarter-section lines are not monumented in the deed and the section subdivision was never surveyed. A 1985 survey located the easement as "20 feet wide, centered on the existing gravel driveway," which runs diagonally and today lies about 180 feet south of the section subdivision line at its west end.

768 words, about 4 min