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Georeferenced soil provenancing with digital signatures
M Tighe1, N Forster2, C Guppy2
1School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. mtighe2@une.edu.au.
Scientific Reports
|February 18, 2018
Summary
Spectral analysis of soil can rapidly determine its origin, aiding forensics and archaeology. This non-destructive method predicts geographic coordinates directly from soil signatures, offering a promising new approach to soil provenancing.
Area of Science:
- Geosciences
- Analytical Chemistry
- Forensic Science
Background:
- Soil provenance is critical for forensics, archaeology, and biosecurity.
- Current methods rely on complex, expensive analyses and expert interpretation.
- Direct soil provenancing offers a more efficient alternative.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the use of rapid, non-destructive spectral analysis for direct soil provenancing.
- To establish a link between soil spectral signatures and georeferenced locations.
- To evaluate multivariate regression techniques for predicting GPS coordinates from spectral data.
Main Methods:
- Utilized portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) for non-destructive spectral signature acquisition.
- Applied three multivariate regression techniques to predict GPS coordinates (Eastings and Northings).
- Tested the approach on two nested soil datasets with minimal data preprocessing.
Main Results:
- Successfully predicted Eastings and Northings within 20% of their range in most cases.
- Generated 50% and 95% confidence intervals for GPS coordinate predictions.
- Demonstrated a direct relationship between spectral signatures and georeferenced locations.
Conclusions:
- Rapid spectral analysis is a promising tool for direct soil provenancing.
- This non-destructive technique can reduce reliance on complex and costly analyses.
- The method has potential applications in various environmental and forensic fields.
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