Mapping Brazilian soil mineralogy using proximal and remote sensing data

Minerals control many soil functions and play a crucial role in addressing global existential issues. Measuring the abundance of minerals is laborious, costly, time-consuming task; however, spectroscopy can be useful tool to overcome this issue. This work aimed map major mineralogical components soils Brazil from surface 1 m deep at spatial resolution 30 m. Spectral data Brazilian Soil Library with Vis-NIR-SWIR was used estimate haematite, goethite, kaolinite, gibbsite. These were spatialized using digital mapping techniques. We also developed novel framework obtain bare reflectance for areas without natural or anthropic exposure (continuous image) it as covariate. their abundances successfully estimated by reflectance. Haematite predictions presented most accurate results Random Forest models, followed gibbsite, goethite. The validation reference found R2 0.64 (haematite), 0.40 (goethite), 0.20 (kaolinite/Kt), 0.29 (gibbsite/Gbs), (Kt/Kt + Gbs). resulting maps accordance geology, pedology, climate, relief revealed distribution mineral finer than existing geological pedological maps, reaching farm level detail.