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Question from Joe:

If you have 54000 cubic yards of soil and want to spread it over 10 acres of land, by how many inches would the ground level rise?

Hi Joe,

First you need to know the number of square yards in an acre. I asked Google. When you type 1 acre in square yards into the Google search window you get the reply tat 1 acre is 4840 square yards. Thus your 10 acres of land is 48,400 square yards. If you spread soil to a depth of $d$ yards over this 10 acres then the volume of soil will be $48,400 \times d$ cubic yards. But you know this volume is 54,000 cubic yards so

\[d = \frac{54000}{48400} = 1.12 \mbox{ yards.}\]

There are 36 inches in a yard so that is $1.12 \times 36$ inches.

Penny

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