Soil depth measurement system and method

A soil thickness determining method at any location in a catchment, the method comprising:

• gathering, by a processor of a computer system, detecting and ranging data for a location;
• digging one or more pits at the location;
• measuring, based on the one or more pits at the location, a limited number of thicknesses of a mobile regolith (TMR) for the location based on a depth of each pit;
• estimating, by the processor of the computer system, a slope of a TMR-curvature relationship (∇2) based on a standard deviation curvature for a catchment at the location;
• determining an average height of the catchment based on the limited number of thicknesses of the TMR at the location;
• automatically determining, by the processor of the computer system, a soil thickness of the location based on the detecting and ranging data and the limited number of TMR measurements by multiplying the slope of the TMR-curvature relationship by a curvature and adding the catchment average height;
• wherein automatically determining the soil thickness further comprises applying an equation:
• h
• =
• (
• Δ
• ⁢
• h
• Δ
• ∇
• 2
• )
• ⁢
• ∇
• 2
• +
• h
• _
• where
• (
• Δ
• ⁢
• h
• Δ
• ∇
• 2
• )
• is the slope of the TMR-curvature relationship (∇2), h is a catchment height and h is the catchment average height;
• and
• displaying, on a display of the computer system, the automatically determined soil thickness.