Historical Shorelines (1841-1995)
10 Quadrangles (5 each in Dorchester and St. Marys Counties)
Arc/Info "Export" (.e00) and ArcView "Shapefile" (.shp) Formats
CD-ROM USGSShore

Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Maryland Geological Survey
Coastal & Estuarine Geology Program
2300 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Phone: (410) 554-5500
FAX: (410) 554-5502
http://www.mgs.md.gov

Lamere Hennessee
March 7, 2001

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Contents of this CD-ROM (USGSShore)

1 Introduction
For the coastal regions of Maryland, the Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) has periodically compiled
maps depicting shoreline position at several points in time.  The most recent compilation -- the first
electronic one -- involved (1) digitizing historical (1841-1977) shoreline maps, all derived directly or
indirectly from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coastal survey maps (topographic or
T-sheets), and (2) interpreting recent (1988-1995) shorelines from digital orthophotography.  MGS is
using the shorelines to update a series of Shoreline Changes maps and to determine coastal land loss,
by watershed and by county, during the last half of the 20th century.

2 Contents of this CD-ROM (ArcShore)
This CD-ROM, USGSShore, contains past shorelines, dating from 1841 to 1995, for ten 7.5-minute
quadrangles, five each from Dorchester and St. Marys Counties (see below).  Originally in MicroImage's
TNTmips .rvc format, the shoreline vectors have been converted to both Arc/Info "Export" (.e00) and
ArcView "Shapefile" (.shp) formats.  They are registered to the Maryland State Plane Coordinate
System (North American Datum of 83, meters).

Files are located in subdirectories within directories assigned the full name (concatenated) of the county.  
Within a county directory, files are located within subdirectories assigned the full name (concatenated) of
the 7.5-minute quadrangle.  The files themselves are named according to the following conventions.  For .e00 
files, the four-character file name indicates the shoreline year.  For .shp files, the four-character
shoreline year is followed by "Line"," indicating a line coverage.


Quadrangles and associated shorelines:


Dorchester County:
Church Creek - 1841, 1942, 1994
Honga - 1848, 1942, 1994
Hudson - 1847, 1942, 1994
Taylors Island - 1848, 1942, 1994
Wingate - 1849, 1942, 1995


St. Marys County:
Piney Point - 1868, 1943, 1958, 1959, 1993
Point Lookout - 1849, 1942, 1955, 1993
St. Clements Island - 1942, 1958, 1993
St. George Island -1858, 1942, 1943, 1958, 1993
St. Marys City - 1853, 1958, 1993



In addition to the shoreline vector files, the CD-ROM also contains two metadata or data
documentation files, each in two different formats.  The digital shorelines are a product of two different
projects.  Each set of shorelines generated as part of a particular project was documented separately. 
In the interest of making the set of Arc shorelines available immediately, the original metadata files have
been copied to the CD-ROM.  They have not been combined.  Nor have they been changed to reflect
the Arc formats and associated file structures on this CD-ROM.  Note that the recent (ca. 1990) shoreline 
vectors have been changed in one important way from those documented by the metadata.  For beach polygons, 
the landward edge of the polygon has been erased.  Thus, shoreline segments designated as beach are drawn 
along the land-water interface.

The names and content of the metadata files, found in the Metadata directory, are:
1. Historical - Historical shorelines, 1841-1976, Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and
2. Recent - Recent (ca. 1990) shorelines, coastal regions of Maryland
The metadata files comply with the Federal Geographic Data Committee's "Content Standards for
Digital Geospatial Metadata" (June 8, 1994).  Two versions of each metadata file are provided - one
(.txt) in ASCII format and one (.wpd) in a more easily read format, Corel WordPerfect 6/7/8.