What was this?

[magid]

An dark green SUV or small truck (didn't get a clear look), with USGS on the side (not sure if its the one at usgs.com), pulling a trailer with four large cannisters of something just stopped in the middle of the street outside my window. Two guys wearing reflective vests got out. One steadied a reversible slow/stop sign on a long handle while the other took a thing attached to a long black hose that ended in something that looked like an extra-long rigid vacuum attachment (and sounded rather like one, too), presumable attached to one of the cannisters at the other end. He started at the other side of the street, carefully going in a straight line across the street. When he got halfway, he pushed rather than pulled it the rest of the way, so I could see that it had some kind of a flat blade at the end. It left no visible mark at all. As soon as he got to my side of the street, they put everything back in the trailer, hopped back in the truck, and drove off.

Comments

[gingicat]

That, with the letters, sounds like a geological survey of some kind, similar to that used on Time Team and Time Team America (nifty archaeology reality shows). Google search on "US geo survey" results in http://www.usgs.gov.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I wondered about that, but couldn't figure out what they might be doing scraping across the street.

[gingicat]

Looking for something that paper/computer records can't confirm? Could be as boring as gas lines, or as exciting as foundations of 1680 Cambridge.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Maybe... Not sure what it would be, though.

The street has been completely dug up in the time I've lived here, to replace sewer lines (so now rainwater runoff and actual sewage are separate), as well as other utility fixes, so I'd assume they'd know all about them. For the foundations of a house, I'd think they'd need to go to a house, rather than trace the width of the street. Oh, hey, unless perhaps it was a measurement of the width of the street? Which I'd also assume they'd have somewhere, but maybe not.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

yeah, it sounds like US Geological Survey (usgs.gov), but I don't know what that equipment is or what they'd be doing with it. If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2005/5184/pdf/SIR2005_5184_all.pdf

i'm pretty sure it's not this, but this is interesting, too.

[magid.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting report. The description of methods didn't include anything that looked/sounded like what I saw this morning, though.