The Quadrilátero Ferrífero (QF) in Brazil is a region of great economic, social and environmental importance, involving conflicts of interest due to land use and heavily pressured by iron mining and urban sprawl. This is an area of environmental importance due to supporting rupestrian vegetation areas on ferruginous substrates and springs from important watersheds. Thus, studies that can bring more knowledge about this region becomes important to support future decisions based on technical information. We used Random Forests algorithm and several databases to model the regolith thickness of the entire QF region and we also created an individual model to predict regolith thickness in the lithostratigraphic unit Minas Supergroup that contains most of the drillhole samples. The regolith thickness modeled for the QF region presented an average of 125.32 m and R² of 0.38, and the specific model for the Minas Supergroup also predicted the average regolith thickness of 125.39 m and R² of 0.39. These values are in accordance with the average regolith thickness (124 m) data from the drillhole database obtained from exploratory programs for iron ore in the QF region. The most important predictive covariates included drainage density, east–west direction, terrain texture and vertical distance from drainage. This study is the first attempt to model the regolith thickness in this important region and the analysis of model uncertainty can orient future studies.

巴西的 Quadrilátero Ferrífero (QF) 是一个具有重要经济、社会和环境重要性的地区，涉及土地使用引起的利益冲突，并受到铁矿开采和城市扩张的严重压力。这是一个具有重要环境意义的区域，因为在铁质基质和来自重要流域的泉水上支持了 rupestrian 植被区。因此，可以带来有关该地区更多知识的研究对于支持基于技术信息的未来决策变得很重要。我们使用随机森林算法和几个数据库来模拟整个 QF 区域的风化层厚度，我们还创建了一个单独的模型来预测包含大部分钻孔样本的岩石地层单位 Minas Supergroup 中的风化层厚度。为 QF 区域建模的风化层厚度平均为 125。²的 0.38，米纳斯超群的特定模型也预测平均风化层厚度为 125.39 m，R ²为 0.39。这些值与从 QF 地区铁矿石勘探计划获得的钻孔数据库中的平均风化层厚度 (124 m) 数据一致。最重要的预测协变量包括排水密度、东西方向、地形纹理和与排水的垂直距离。这项研究是首次尝试模拟这一重要区域的风化层厚度，对模型不确定性的分析可以为未来的研究指明方向。