- Industry: Earth science
- Number of terms: 93452
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Founded in 1941, the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) is an international association representing the interests of professionals in surveying, mapping and communicating spatial data relating to the Earth's surface. Today, ACSM's members include more than 7,000 surveyors, ...
(1) A plane touching a curved surface at a point in such a way that all straight lines through that point and in the plane are tangent to curves in the surface. A plane tangent to an ellipsoid at any point is perpendicular to the normal (to the ellipsoid) at that point. A small region on the ellipsoid can be projected conveniently onto a plane tangent near the center of the region. A tangent plane may contain more than one point of the surface, e.g., a plane tangent to a cylinder is tangent along the whole length of a straight line on the cylinder.
Industry:Earth science
A circle or line parallel to a fictitious equator and connecting all points having the same fictitious latitude. A fictitious parallel may be further specified as a transverse, oblique or grid parallel, depending on the type.
Industry:Earth science
(1) Oral evidence; evidence that is given by word of mouth. This is the ordinary kind of evidence given by witnesses in court. (2) In a particular sense, and with reference to contracts, deeds, wills and other writings, extraneous evidence or evidence aliunde.
Industry:Earth science
The perpendicular from the internal perspective center to the plane of the photograph.
Industry:Earth science
Adjusting the angles in a traverse using the method of least squares, subject to the conditions that (a) the geodetic coordinates of the initial and final points are known, and (b) the azimuths at the initial and final points are also known. The angular changes are weighted inversely as the squares of the lengths of the corresponding courses.
Industry:Earth science
A state of continuing without limit. The term is usually applied to an amount which accrues periodically for an indefinite number of installments, i.e., without known or expected limitations.
Industry:Earth science
(1) An observation of a celestial body near the celestial meridian of the observer. (2) The measured angular elevation of a celestial body near the celestial meridian of the observer.
Industry:Earth science
A plane fitted in some suitable and defined manner to the apparent horizon.
Industry:Earth science
An instrument which determines the speed of a current by transmitting acoustic pulses in opposite directions parallel to the direction of flow of the current and measuring the difference in between the times of travel in the two directions.
Industry:Earth science
