The Line Between Borings
The most dangerous line on a cross-section is the one the software drew without being asked to.
Most cross-section outputs look authoritative by default. Horizons run continuous from left to right, layer boundaries meet at plausible angles, and the final figure reads like a complete picture of the subsurface. The problem is that the software does not know what it does not know. It connects the data points you gave it and fills in everything between them with geometric assumptions. If your boring spacing was 50 feet, those assumptions cover 50 feet of ground you never sampled.
Environmental consultants know this. But when a cross-section comes out of the tool looking clean and complete, the cognitive friction of questioning it goes up. You have to actively resist the figure to add back the uncertainty the software quietly removed.
Three Places This Goes Wrong
The cross-section mistakes that cost the most are not data-entry errors. They are interpretation errors that the software either introduced or made harder to catch.
Assuming Layer Continuity
A fine-grained layer encountered in B-1 and B-3 may or may not be the same depositional unit. Stacked fluvial deposits, discontinuous lenses, and interfingered sediments can look identical in a log description while representing entirely separate events. Software that draws a continuous horizon between two similar-looking contacts is making a geologic call. It just does not look like one.
Interpolating Through a Pinch-Out
A layer that tapers to zero thickness between two borings - a pinch-out - cannot survive automated interpolation. The software has no mechanism to distinguish "this layer continues" from "this layer ends somewhere in here." It draws the continuation. A consultant reviewing that cross-section may catch the error, or may not, depending on whether anyone thinks to question a clean-looking output.
Projecting False Confidence Across Widely Spaced Borings
The wider the boring spacing, the less defensible any interpolated horizon becomes. But the figure does not show spacing - it shows a layer. Unless the cross-section is scaled to actual survey coordinates or a real-world elevation profile and the boring positions reflect their true field locations, a 200-foot gap between borings can look the same as a 30-foot gap. The visual distance compresses or expands independent of reality when borehole spacing is adjusted for visual fit rather than held to scale.
What LOGitEASY Does Instead
LOGitEASY generates cross-sections to scale - from survey elevations or a Google elevation profile - with borehole spacing that reflects actual field distances. The boring positions are not rearranged for visual convenience. If three borings are clustered on one end of a site and a fourth is 200 feet away, that spacing shows up in the figure. Analytical results are plotted at their actual sample depths: blow counts, RQD%, water elevations, contamination data. The title block carries the project logo, name, and address. All of this comes from the field data you collected.
LOGitEASY does not auto-interpolate layer continuity between borings. The consultant draws the layer connections. The software scales them correctly and renders them accurately, but the interpretation stays with the person who sampled the site. Keeping that responsibility with the consultant, not the software, is the entire design premise.
Why 'Possible' Is the Right Word
The January 2026 update added Fill, Alluvium, Possible Fill, and Possible Alluvium as display options in DIY geologic cross-sections. The "Possible" designations are worth more than they look: they carry the same epistemic caution as writing "probable" in a boring log description instead of committing to a classification the data does not fully support.
Uncertainty should survive from field log to final figure. A system that forces every layer contact into a definitive horizon removes that signal before the report reaches the client. For Phase II ESA work - or any site characterization where a remediation design follows directly from the cross-section - that lost signal has real cost consequences downstream.
The Practical Side
A DIY cross-section in LOGitEASY starts from field notes or existing boring logs - handwritten or PDF. The output is available in under 15 minutes. For firms that need a fully drafted and branded figure, LOGitEASY's drafting service handles it through the same system.
Historical boring data for a project area is visible on a map before drilling starts, helping anticipate local geology and plan boring locations before the field crew mobilizes. Firms with data from previous investigations on adjacent or overlapping properties can pull that history into the same view, giving a clearer picture of likely subsurface conditions before a single new boring is drilled.
For firms already running gINT, LogPlot, or C Tech EVS, LOGitEASY exports to those formats. The cross-section work fits inside an existing workflow rather than replacing it.
2026-09-11
