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Vertical datum
A vertical datum is used for measuring the elevations of points on the earth's
surface. Vertical data are either tidal, based on sea levels, gravimetric,
based on a
geoid, or geodetic, based on the same ellipsoid models of the earth used for computing
horizontal datums.
In common usage, elevations are often cited in height above sea level; this is a
widely used tidal datum. Because ocean tides cause water levels to change constantly,
the sea level is generally taken to be some average of the tide heights. Mean lower low
water — the average of the lowest points the tide reached on each day during a
measuring period of several years — is the datum used for measuring water depths on
some nautical charts, for example; this is called the chart datum. Whilst the
use of sea-
level as a datum is useful for geologically recent
topographic features, sea level has
not stayed constant throughout geological time, so is less useful when measuring very
long-term processes.
[Источник: Wikipedia, URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodetic_datum (время
обращения -
17.06.15)].
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