In-The-Field:

Mt. Vernon Estate

Archeologoy Mapping
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  In front of Mt. Vernon mansion

George Washington's historic Mount Vernon Estate was a profitable, and diverse commercial enterprise. Today, Mount Vernon is almost unchanged in appearance as it was in 1799, the last year of George Washington's life.

Sections of the estate included a Grist Mill and Distillery, which was one of the sites selected for a training workshop and equipment demonstration as part of the SAGEEP 2000 conference.

Dan Delea and Meg Watters, of Geophysical Survey Systems, conducted surveys with the SIR-2000 Subsurface Interface Radar System and the GEM-300 Electro Magnetic Induction Profiler.

 Map of Mt. Vernon Estate

Graphic Courtesy of Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens

For more information about the Mount Vernon Estate visit their website.

   
Mt. Vernon Demo

February 24, 2000
Location: Grist Mill and Distillery

Demonstration of GEM-300
Electromagnetic Induction Profiler

Note: Blue tarp is covering an open excavation unit

GEM-300 data from Mt. Vernon Estate GEM-300 Data from Mt. Vernon Estate
GPR Time Slice data from Mt. Vernon Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) profile collected at the site of the Distillery and Grist Mill at the Mt. Vernon Estate.

Image at the left shows data represented in stacked time slices.

Image below is a 3-D cube representation of data (black line represents the survey transect).
GPR 3-d cube profile collected at Mt. Vernon 
  Also during the day, Dan and Meg collected data in an area thought to be a slave cemetery from Washington's time at Mt. Vernon. The slave cemetery is located near the grave site and memorial of Washington and his family.

The survey grid at this location was laid out in .5 meter intervals. The two data examples below indicate two potential gravesites between 5.9 and 6.3 feet in depth and separated by 1.5 meters. The anomalies extend for approximately 1.5 meters.

 Mt. Vernon Slave Cemetary
  GPR profile collected at .5m

Radar profile at .5 meters
Location of gravesites is circled
 

Radar profile at 1.0 meters
Location of gravesites is circled

 GPR Profile collected at 1.0 m
 

Click here to see the data set collected of the Bowling Green.

At the end of the day, Dan and Meg decided to collect one last radar profile. Meg is standing at the front of the Bowling Green in front of the estate.

The data were collected starting at the front gates, and continued the entire length of the bowling green to the round-about in front of the mansion (see map above). The radar profile shows pipe, sprinkler system and electrical conduit.

In front of the Bowling Green at Mt. Vernon

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Geophysical Survey Systems Inc., Member Oyo Group
www.geophysical.com