sporket
Contributor
This sounds like the making of a good Deep Sea Detectives show!
Smith Mountain Lake - Underwater town - Fact or Fiction?
- Thread starter mushing_madness
- Start date
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If only we knew someone who lived in Lynchburg VA . . .
OP
mushing_madness
Registered
Hey all,
Being the original poster of this - I've been watching the conversations again -- nice to see!
Given the Google Map image, I'm attaching a corresponding garmin lake map. It shows the submerged roads, timber, etc. The marina is in the upper left, where the road goes submerged and crosses the lake (note there are many submerged road in that lake!!!) Notice the area between the two boats runs from about 90-135 feet in depth. I can zoom in and give more detail if you give me specific areas - or I can provide additional areas if you wish.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28655441@N04/2674879744/
If there is a way to link a file from flikr into this forum, I'd do it (if I knew how).
By the way, this link is the reason I started this post: http://www.virginiasbestkeptsecret.com/scubadive.html
MM
Being the original poster of this - I've been watching the conversations again -- nice to see!
Given the Google Map image, I'm attaching a corresponding garmin lake map. It shows the submerged roads, timber, etc. The marina is in the upper left, where the road goes submerged and crosses the lake (note there are many submerged road in that lake!!!) Notice the area between the two boats runs from about 90-135 feet in depth. I can zoom in and give more detail if you give me specific areas - or I can provide additional areas if you wish.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28655441@N04/2674879744/
If there is a way to link a file from flikr into this forum, I'd do it (if I knew how).
By the way, this link is the reason I started this post: http://www.virginiasbestkeptsecret.com/scubadive.html
MM
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How about single-handedly reprogramming the garmin scanner to do full underwater topos?
I don't really have the time to tackle this, so I'll just lay it out how I would solve this thing...
The dam that created SML wasn't completed until 1963. It took until '66 for the lake to fill completely up. Back when terraserver was a fledgling program, you used to be able to view old army and military recon imagery, from back in the 40's, 50's, when they used to fly over the continental US with planes and take pics for surveys and stuff. I've already checked, their oldest shot that they say they have is from '94. If it was me, I'd be trying to find a website with those old aerials from pre-'60. With any luck, they really shouldn't be that hard to find, and the image quality was remarkably clear, definately enough to spot something like a small town. There are also ways that you can use google earth with old school image overlays, but this is beyond the time that I have.
Hope that helps, good luck to whoever wants to go for it. If nobody cracks this one soon, then I'll go ahead and get back in.
The dam that created SML wasn't completed until 1963. It took until '66 for the lake to fill completely up. Back when terraserver was a fledgling program, you used to be able to view old army and military recon imagery, from back in the 40's, 50's, when they used to fly over the continental US with planes and take pics for surveys and stuff. I've already checked, their oldest shot that they say they have is from '94. If it was me, I'd be trying to find a website with those old aerials from pre-'60. With any luck, they really shouldn't be that hard to find, and the image quality was remarkably clear, definately enough to spot something like a small town. There are also ways that you can use google earth with old school image overlays, but this is beyond the time that I have.
Hope that helps, good luck to whoever wants to go for it. If nobody cracks this one soon, then I'll go ahead and get back in.
amaxey
Registered
That's pretty cool. Actually, that's waaay cool. That's where I saw divers, but I think the area of most interest is probably due south of that. Ice9 could elaborate more.
For reference, if you locate the island "middle island" on your map (lower middle of map) you can use that for reference, there are actually 3 islands there and several shoals in that area. The area with the bridge seems to be south of that. It's a good reference point, in the middle of the picture below:
I think Vista Point is the long point that is the dead end of SR626. Ice9 is looking 1/2 mile east of that point. If I'm reading it right, the bridge would be where the gray and blue lines intersect, but I would think the whole area from there to the point would be of great interest.
If you could put up a shot of that area (basically by moving the islands to the top of the view from your last picture) I think we'd see what ICE9 is talking about. Hopefully he'll chime in and get you more specific points on where to look. I assume a Lat/Long would be best.
If you see "submerged town" on the chart....I guess we'll have a good idea where it is! Wouldn't that be something?
Thanks so much for putting that up, it's great!
To link a file into your post, go to "advanced" in the reply and hit the little image icon (mountain picture). It will prompt you for a URL.
To get the URL, if you don't already know it, you can browse to the image on FlickR, right click it, and click properties. The URL is in that properties dialog box. You can copy and paste the URL from there.
Al
Can you post one of one screen south? The place is 1/2 miles east of Vista Point...
Yup! Vista Point is the end of 626. Here is an old USGS image overlayed onto google earth. The town should be just south of the push-pin. If we could get the Garmin map for that area it wold be 100% awesome!
telemonster
Contributor
Hmm you might check with the USGS, from the Landsat program. I've been to their data center outside of Sioux Falls, and I remember one of the guys telling me that he filled the request for the original Microsoft Terraserver project (the images were shipped on DLT tapes to Microsoft I think, 7 or 8 tapes IIRC).
Small problem, Landsat wasn't started until '66, and didn't become "Landsat" until '75.
Oh and Ice9 - You should be able to use the USGS topographical survey overlays from back in the day to ballpark the depth once you determine your search area by comparing them to the current ones, and then determining the distance between them and vista point, ya mean? At least that way you don't get out there blind.
Any one check any of the local pro-fishing maps? Also might be worth talking to some of the better and older fishing guides from the area. They might know. According to this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401800.html) the town is forty feet underwater, and Todd Keith of "The Shad Taxi" knows where it is.
Oh and Ice9 - You should be able to use the USGS topographical survey overlays from back in the day to ballpark the depth once you determine your search area by comparing them to the current ones, and then determining the distance between them and vista point, ya mean? At least that way you don't get out there blind.
Any one check any of the local pro-fishing maps? Also might be worth talking to some of the better and older fishing guides from the area. They might know. According to this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401800.html) the town is forty feet underwater, and Todd Keith of "The Shad Taxi" knows where it is.
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