Large-scale soil investigations for greenfield railways using airborne geoscanning: a case study from Mato Grosso, Brazil
Large-scale soil investigations for greenfield railways using airborne geoscanning: a case study from Mato Grosso, Brazil
We present large-scale ground investigations along 170 km of the Lucas do Rio Verde railway, a new, 730- km-long railway being planned in Mato Grosso, Brazil through airborne geoscanning. We combe airborne geophysical data with limited intrusive ground data to generate 3D ground models, with the help of machine learning algorithms. These rapidly acquired data and generated models allowed us to quickly characterize geological heterogeneity in the area, predict the depth to the soil-rock interface, and identify key groupings of soil types. While some results were limited by poor geophysical contrast between sand and sandstone in some portions of the survey area, they allowed to focus the next phase of ground investigation on critical areas. We show that we reduce the uncertainty in estimating rock excavation costs by 30% compared to a conventional, borehole-only workflow. This case study is the first successful example of airborne geoscanning in an infrastructure project in a tropical climate.
C. W. Christensen; B. R. Bloss; A. Silva; E. J. Harrison; M. S. Gomes; R. W. M. Ferraz
18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)
C - Risk analysis and safety evaluation
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