Using the U.S. Public Land Survey System
DISCLAIMER
Before purchasing, review the rules of your licensing or certifying entity. It is your responsibility to confirm this course meets your CE requirements. See the credit tab on the course page for details.
What’s Included: Full webinar recording, written course materials, expert instruction, a mandatory quiz, and a certificate upon completion.
Deliverability Timeline: All courses are generally available within 1-2 weeks after the live presentation.
CE Credits: AIA and/or LA/CES accreditation is available by request for courses recorded prior to March 11, 2026. All courses after that date include those accreditations by default, if applicable. With these accreditations, our courses qualify for credit in nearly all states for engineers, surveyors, architects, and landscape architects.
Learn more about the on-demand format in our FAQ or contact us at (715) 835-5900 or customerservice@halfmoonseminars.org
Agenda
Webinar instructions will be emailed before the date of the webinar.
Please log into the webinar 15 – 30 minutes before the start time.
Friday, July 26, 2024
9:00 am – 1:30 pm CDT
Presented by:
Russell W. Olsen, PLS, PS, RPLS Engineering Design Source, Inc
Metes and Bounds and What Came
Before the US Public Land Survey System (PLSS)
- Basic land description concepts: distances, directions, circular curves,
mathematical closure, state plane coordinates - Reading a metes and bounds description
- Drawbacks of metes and bounds system
- Development of PLSS, advantages and disadvantages
Basics of the U.S. Public Land Survey System (PLSS)
- Principal meridians and baselines
- The township: the basic building block of the PLSS
- Ranges and sections
- Numbering sections
- Irregular sections and aliquot parts
Describing and Locating Lands in the PLSS
- Conventional parcels
- “Part of” descriptions
- Reading a PLSS description
- Writing a description
- Drawing a description
- Software/websites for mapping, drawing
and locating described lands
- Software/websites for mapping, drawing
Webinar Instructions
All attendees must log-on through their own email – attendees may not watch together if they wish to earn continuing education credit. HalfMoon Education Inc. must be able to prove attendance if either the attendee or HalfMoon Education Inc. is audited.
Certificates of completion can be downloaded in PDF form upon passing a short quiz. A link to the quiz will be sent to each qualifying attendee immediately after the webinar. The certificate can be downloaded from the Results page of the quiz upon scoring 80% or higher.
Webinars are presented via GoToWebinar, an easy-to-use application that can be run on most systems and tablets. Instructions and login information will be provided in an email sent close to the date of the webinar. It is highly recommended that you download, install and test the application before the webinar begins by clicking on the link in the email.
GoToWebinar App requirements:
Windows 7 – 10 or Mac OSX Mavericks (10.9) – macOS Catalina (10.15)
Web Browser:
The two most recent version of the following browsers:
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge
Internet Explorer v11 (or later) with Flash enabled.
Internet connection: Minimum of 1Mbps Hardware: 2GB RAM or more
For more information, visit the Support section at www.gotowebinar.com
Credits
Engineers
4.0 PDHs
Land Surveyors
4.0 PDHs
(this course is not approved for New York Land Surveyors and Engineers)
Continuing Education Credit Information
This webinar is open to the public and is designed to qualify for 4.0 PDHs for professional engineers and land surveyors in most states for whom this subject matter is professionally relevant. This course is not approved in New York; please refer to specific state rules to determine eligibility.
HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for engineers in Florida (Provider License No: CEA362), Indiana (License No. CE21700059), Maryland, New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00049300) and North Carolina (S-0130).
HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for land surveyors licensed in Indiana (License No. CE10600325), Maryland, and North Carolina (S-0130). This course has been registered with the Florida Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers for 4.0 continuing education credits and has been approved by the Missouri APEPLSPLA Board for 4.0 PDUs for land surveyors.
Speakers
Russell W. Olsen, PLS, PS, RPLS
Senior Professional Land Surveyor with Engineering Design Source, Inc., in Chesterfield, MOMr. Olsen is a Senior Professional Land Surveyor with Engineering Design Source, Inc., a Civil Engineering and Surveying Firm based in Chesterfield, Missouri. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a professional land surveyor, beginning in the Chicago metropolitan area. Mr. Olsen is currently licensed as a land surveyor in Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Texas. He has been fortunate to have worked on numerous Highway Department/Department of Transportation horizontal and vertical control surveys, land acquisition and topographic surveys, County Transportation Department Plats of Highway, and Municipal Highway Department surveys. Mr. Olsen has also worked on many commercial and residential developments throughout northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. He is currently enrolled in the University of Maine Graduate School in the Eng. D. (Doctor of Engineering) Engineering Technology/Surveying Engineering Program. Mr. Olsen has an MS in Engineering Technology/Surveying Engineering from the University of Maine and a BA in Mathematical Sciences. He has presented seminars and webinars previously with HalfMoon Education on topics including Law and Ethics of Illinois Land Surveying; Locating Land Boundaries on Paper (and on the Ground); Complying with Minimum Standards of Practice; Handling Ethical Issues in Land Surveying Practice; Complying with the Illinois Plat Act; Complying with National Society of Professional Surveyors Creed and Canons.
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