Evaluating geostatistical methods along with semi-destructive analysis for forensic provenancing organic-rich soils in humid subtropical climate

When no samples are available for direct comparisons during a criminal investigation, forensic scientists must resort to georeferenced soil databases in order to find the source of a single questioned evidence. To this end, several authors addressed many methods to infer the origin of soil samples, such as establishing search range intervals or defining statistical similarities. However, little is currently known about the efficiency of these methods when it comes to organic-rich and deep weathered subtropical soils. Therefore, this study attempts to contribute to this subject by evaluating the predictability of a soil database built in a 100 km² area in the Curitiba Metropolitan Region, Brazil, where 232 topsoil (