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Full catalog/Global_Soil_Regolith_Sediment_1304
Global_Soil_Regolith_Sediment_1304·v1·dataset

How deep soil and loose rock go (global, 1 km)

Global 1-km Gridded Thickness of Soil, Regolith, and Sedimentary Deposit Layers
land NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. Estimates how thick the loose, permeable material above solid bedrock is, that is, the combined depth of soil, regolith (weathered rock), and sediment, on a roughly one-kilometer worldwide grid.

How it's made. Modeled by combining the best available data on terrain, climate, and geology, organized by landform type, rather than measured directly by a single sensor.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for groundwater and hydrology studies, landscape and erosion research, and Earth-system models that need to know how much loose ground sits on top of rock.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › EROSION/SEDIMENTATION › STRATIGRAPHIC SEQUENCELAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION › DIGITAL ELEVATION/TERRAIN MODEL (DEM)LAND SURFACE › SOILS › SOIL DEPTHLAND SURFACE › EROSION/SEDIMENTATION › SEDIMENTS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1900-01-01 → 2015-12-31
  • Measured byDEM (HYDROMETERS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -60, 180, 90
  • FormatsGeoTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This data set provides high-resolution estimates of the thickness of the permeable layers above bedrock (soil, regolith, and sedimentary deposits) within a global 30-arcsecond (~1-km) grid using the best available data for topography, climate, and geology as input. These data are modeled to represent estimated thicknesses by landform type for the geological present.

Get the data

global_soil_regolith_sediment_1304_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="Global_Soil_Regolith_Sediment_1304",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.