Managing Global Resources for a Secure Future

Depth to Bedrock and its variability in the Carolina Slate Belt is poorly documented. Traditional methods of determining the depth to a lithic contact are time consuming. An investigation of two forested ephemeral drainages (7.96 Ha) in the Carolina Slate Belt using Ground Penetrating Radar was conducted to estimate continuous information of depth to bedrock and determine statistical parameters along the sampled transects.

Ground Penetrating Radar derived estimates of depth along transects were field validated and correlated with Digital Elevation Model derived terrain derivatives. The predictive model developed was used to create a subsurface topography.

The surface and subsurface topographic datasets were then used to highlight the impact of higher accuracy and resolution depth to bedrock data on the hillslope Peclet index, the network width function and, the heterogeneity index (H). These impacts were evaluated in the context of possible dominant runoff processes at the site, e.g. the fill and spill mechanism.