Applications of Soil Taxonomy and Web Soil Survey (WSS) in Universal Post-Mortem Interval Formula.

Soil moisture and temperature regimes are readily available in the U.S. Soil Taxonomy and Web Soil Survey. The objectives of this study were to enhance the universal post-mortem interval (PMI) formula for “burial” decomposition developed by Vass (2011) using soil temperature and moisture regimes from the U.S. Soil Taxonomy, the Web Soil Survey, and to test newly enhanced formula on several forensic cases.  Test results on 2 forensic cases show  that use of soil moisture and temperature regimes values provide a range for the PMI, which should be helpful to forensic scientists in identifying the time period of burial. Soil temperature and moisture regimes were mapped worldwide and can aid the adaptability of the model worldwide. Future climate changes may potentially have an impact on existing soil moisture and temperature regimes and can be easily updated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to incorporate real-time changes.