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32-1579: Coordinates : 5°3′45.39″N 53°2′51.28″W / 5.0626083°N 53.0475778°W / 5.0626083; -53.0475778 Dam in Sinnamary, French Guiana Petit-Saut Dam [REDACTED] Petit-Saut Dam, 2011. [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Location of Petit-Saut Dam in French Guiana Country France Location Sinnamary , French Guiana Coordinates 5°3′45.39″N 53°2′51.28″W / 5.0626083°N 53.0475778°W / 5.0626083; -53.0475778 Purpose Power Status Operational Construction began 1989 Opening date 1993 ; 31 years ago ( 1993 ) Owner(s) Électricité de France Dam and spillways Type of dam Gravity, roller-compacted concrete Impounds Sinnamary River Height 48 m (157 ft) Length 740 m (2,430 ft) Dam volume 410,000 m (540,000 cu yd) Reservoir Creates Petit-Saut Lake Total capacity 3,500,000,000 m (2,800,000 acre⋅ft) Surface area 365 km (141 sq mi) Commission date January 1994-1995 Turbines 4 x 29 MW Kaplan-type Installed capacity 116 MW The Petit-Saut Dam
64-505: A tan ϕ {\displaystyle \textstyle {\tan \beta ={\frac {b}{a}}\tan \phi }\,\!} ; for the GRS 80 and WGS 84 spheroids, b a = 0.99664719 {\textstyle {\tfrac {b}{a}}=0.99664719} . ( β {\displaystyle \textstyle {\beta }\,\!} is known as the reduced (or parametric) latitude ). Aside from rounding, this
96-460: A datum transformation such as a Helmert transformation , although in certain situations a simple translation may be sufficient. Datums may be global, meaning that they represent the whole Earth, or they may be local, meaning that they represent an ellipsoid best-fit to only a portion of the Earth. Examples of global datums include World Geodetic System (WGS 84, also known as EPSG:4326 ),
128-468: A coordinate tuple like a cartesian coordinate system , the geographic coordinate system is not cartesian because the measurements are angles and are not on a planar surface. A full GCS specification, such as those listed in the EPSG and ISO 19111 standards, also includes a choice of geodetic datum (including an Earth ellipsoid ), as different datums will yield different latitude and longitude values for
160-608: A point on Earth's surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses (often called great circles ), which converge at the North and South Poles. The meridian of the British Royal Observatory in Greenwich , in southeast London, England, is the international prime meridian , although some organizations—such as
192-473: A region of the surface of the Earth. Some newer datums are bound to the center of mass of the Earth. This combination of mathematical model and physical binding mean that anyone using the same datum will obtain the same location measurement for the same physical location. However, two different datums will usually yield different location measurements for the same physical location, which may appear to differ by as much as several hundred meters; this not because
224-411: Is 6,367,449 m . Since the Earth is an oblate spheroid , not spherical, that result can be off by several tenths of a percent; a better approximation of a longitudinal degree at latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is where Earth's equatorial radius a {\displaystyle a} equals 6,378,137 m and tan β = b
256-480: Is 110.6 km. The circles of longitude, meridians, meet at the geographical poles, with the west–east width of a second naturally decreasing as latitude increases. On the Equator at sea level, one longitudinal second measures 30.92 m, a longitudinal minute is 1855 m and a longitudinal degree is 111.3 km. At 30° a longitudinal second is 26.76 m, at Greenwich (51°28′38″N) 19.22 m, and at 60° it
288-522: Is 15.42 m. On the WGS 84 spheroid, the length in meters of a degree of latitude at latitude ϕ (that is, the number of meters you would have to travel along a north–south line to move 1 degree in latitude, when at latitude ϕ ), is about The returned measure of meters per degree latitude varies continuously with latitude. Similarly, the length in meters of a degree of longitude can be calculated as (Those coefficients can be improved, but as they stand
320-637: Is a gravity dam on the Sinnamary River about 36 km (22 mi) south of Sinnamary in French Guiana . The primary purpose of the dam is to produce hydroelectric power and it supports a 116 MW power station. Construction on the dam and power station began in July 1989 and placement of concrete for the dam started in July 1992. The dam was complete in February 1993 and the first generator
352-456: Is known as a graticule . The origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km (390 mi) south of Tema , Ghana , a location often facetiously called Null Island . In order to use the theoretical definitions of latitude, longitude, and height to precisely measure actual locations on the physical earth, a geodetic datum must be used. A horizonal datum
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#1732769711654384-434: Is on Wikidata Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system ( GCS ) is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude . It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various spatial reference systems that are in use, and forms the basis for most others. Although latitude and longitude form
416-634: Is the exact distance along a parallel of latitude; getting the distance along the shortest route will be more work, but those two distances are always within 0.6 m of each other if the two points are one degree of longitude apart. Like any series of multiple-digit numbers, latitude-longitude pairs can be challenging to communicate and remember. Therefore, alternative schemes have been developed for encoding GCS coordinates into alphanumeric strings or words: These are not distinct coordinate systems, only alternative methods for expressing latitude and longitude measurements. Q2885258#identifiers From Misplaced Pages,
448-465: Is used to precisely measure latitude and longitude, while a vertical datum is used to measure elevation or altitude. Both types of datum bind a mathematical model of the shape of the earth (usually a reference ellipsoid for a horizontal datum, and a more precise geoid for a vertical datum) to the earth. Traditionally, this binding was created by a network of control points , surveyed locations at which monuments are installed, and were only accurate for
480-481: The International Date Line , which diverges from it in several places for political and convenience reasons, including between far eastern Russia and the far western Aleutian Islands . The combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The visual grid on a map formed by lines of latitude and longitude
512-520: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " Q2885258 " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try the purge function . Titles on Misplaced Pages are case sensitive except for
544-526: The 1st or 2nd century, Marinus of Tyre compiled an extensive gazetteer and mathematically plotted world map using coordinates measured east from a prime meridian at the westernmost known land, designated the Fortunate Isles , off the coast of western Africa around the Canary or Cape Verde Islands , and measured north or south of the island of Rhodes off Asia Minor . Ptolemy credited him with
576-506: The Earth's surface move relative to each other due to continental plate motion, subsidence, and diurnal Earth tidal movement caused by the Moon and the Sun. This daily movement can be as much as a meter. Continental movement can be up to 10 cm a year, or 10 m in a century. A weather system high-pressure area can cause a sinking of 5 mm . Scandinavia is rising by 1 cm a year as a result of
608-729: The European ED50 , and the British OSGB36 . Given a location, the datum provides the latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } and longitude λ {\displaystyle \lambda } . In the United Kingdom there are three common latitude, longitude, and height systems in use. WGS 84 differs at Greenwich from the one used on published maps OSGB36 by approximately 112 m. The military system ED50 , used by NATO , differs from about 120 m to 180 m. Points on
640-536: The French Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière —continue to use other meridians for internal purposes. The prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres , although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E. This is not to be conflated with
672-577: The center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels , as they are parallel to the Equator and to each other. The North Pole is 90° N; the South Pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the Equator , the fundamental plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The Equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres . The longitude λ of
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#1732769711654704-649: The default datum used for the Global Positioning System , and the International Terrestrial Reference System and Frame (ITRF), used for estimating continental drift and crustal deformation . The distance to Earth's center can be used both for very deep positions and for positions in space. Local datums chosen by a national cartographical organization include the North American Datum ,
736-490: The distance they give is correct within a centimeter.) The formulae both return units of meters per degree. An alternative method to estimate the length of a longitudinal degree at latitude ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is to assume a spherical Earth (to get the width per minute and second, divide by 60 and 3600, respectively): where Earth's average meridional radius M r {\displaystyle \textstyle {M_{r}}\,\!}
768-893: The 💕 Look for Q2885258 on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Q2885258 in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use
800-474: The full adoption of longitude and latitude, rather than measuring latitude in terms of the length of the midsummer day. Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geography used the same prime meridian but measured latitude from the Equator instead. After their work was translated into Arabic in the 9th century, Al-Khwārizmī 's Book of the Description of the Earth corrected Marinus' and Ptolemy's errors regarding
832-781: The length of the Mediterranean Sea , causing medieval Arabic cartography to use a prime meridian around 10° east of Ptolemy's line. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes ' recovery of Ptolemy's text a little before 1300; the text was translated into Latin at Florence by Jacopo d'Angelo around 1407. In 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference , attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt
864-461: The location has moved, but because the reference system used to measure it has shifted. Because any spatial reference system or map projection is ultimately calculated from latitude and longitude, it is crucial that they clearly state the datum on which they are based. For example, a UTM coordinate based on WGS84 will be different than a UTM coordinate based on NAD27 for the same location. Converting coordinates from one datum to another requires
896-595: The longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich , England as the zero-reference line. The Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911. The latitude ϕ of a point on Earth's surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through (or close to)
928-463: The melting of the ice sheets of the last ice age , but neighboring Scotland is rising by only 0.2 cm . These changes are insignificant if a local datum is used, but are statistically significant if a global datum is used. On the GRS 80 or WGS 84 spheroid at sea level at the Equator, one latitudinal second measures 30.715 m , one latitudinal minute is 1843 m and one latitudinal degree
960-1671: The original on 8 November 2015 . Retrieved 31 March 2014 . ^ "Hydroelectric Plants in French Guiana & Suriname" . IndustCards . Retrieved 31 March 2014 . ^ "PETIT SAUT Environmental report after 12 years running" (PDF) . Comite Scientifique Petit-Saut. 2008 . Retrieved 31 March 2014 . External links [ edit ] [REDACTED] France portal [REDACTED] Water portal [REDACTED] Renewable energy portal [REDACTED] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barrage de Petit-Saut . Authority control databases [REDACTED] International VIAF Geographic Structurae Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petit-Saut_Dam&oldid=1083940799 " Categories : Gravity dams Hydroelectric power stations in France Dams completed in 1993 Energy infrastructure completed in 1994 Dams in French Guiana Roller-compacted concrete dams 1993 establishments in French Guiana Buildings and structures in Sinnamary Hidden categories: Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Coordinates on Wikidata Commons category link
992-512: The same location. The invention of a geographic coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene , who composed his now-lost Geography at the Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. A century later, Hipparchus of Nicaea improved on this system by determining latitude from stellar measurements rather than solar altitude and determining longitude by timings of lunar eclipses , rather than dead reckoning . In
Petit-Saut Dam - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-557: Was operational in January 1994. The last went online in 1995. It is owned by Électricité de France . Construction of the dam and impounding of its large 3,500,000,000 m (2,800,000 acre⋅ft) reservoir led to several environmental issues that continue to be monitored and addressed. These issues include deforestation , greenhouse gases and water deoxidation. References [ edit ] ^ "RCC Dam Database (Petit Saut)" . Malcolm Dunstan & Associates. Archived from
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