Abstract
Depth to bedrock influences or controls many of the Earth’s physical and chemical processes. It plays important roles in soil science, geology, hydrology, land surface processes, civil engineering, and other related fields. However, information about depth to bedrock in China is very deficient, and there is no independent map of depth to bedrock in China currently. This paper describes the materials and methods to produce high-resolution (100 m) depth-to-bedrock maps of China. For different research and application needs, two sets of data are provided for users. One is the prediction by the ensemble of the random forests and gradient boosting tree models, and the other is the prediction and the uncertainty of prediction based on quantile regression forests model. In comparison with depth-to-bedrock maps of China extracted from previous global predictions, our predictions showed higher accuracy and more spatial details. These data sets can provide more accurate information for Earth system research compared with previous depth-to-bedrock maps.
Highlights
Background & SummaryBedrock is the consolidated solid rock underlying unconsolidated surface materials, such as soil or other regolith[1]
Depth to bedrock (DTB) information plays an important role in many fields of Earth system science
DTB information is indispensable to civil engineering in building homes, roads, railways, and bridges[5]
Summary
Bedrock is the consolidated solid rock underlying unconsolidated surface materials, such as soil or other regolith[1]. Observations of DTB by the FAO8, Shangguan et al.[12] and Hengl et al.[9] have been based solely on soil data; the predictions are often limited to soil surfaces with depths limited to several meters. A large number of borehole logs produced by geologists in China provide DTB information and are available Both the site observations of boreholes and environmental covariates provide the cornerstone for producing a new map of DTB with higher accuracy and higher resolution (and more spatial details). This study developed DTB maps of China at higher spatial resolution and higher accuracy These maps will provide more accurate information of DTB in China for Earth system science related research, such as mineral exploration, land surface modelling, hydrology modelling and so on.
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