A system for electronically marking buried utilities, comprising: an electronic marker device placed below a ground surface; a buried utility locator including: a position sensing module; a marker excitation device to generate and provide a marker excitation signal to the electronic marker device; a locator front-end subsystem to receive a marker response signal from the electronic marker device responsive to the marker excitation signal and magnetic field signals emitted from a buried utility in proximity to the electronic marker device; and a first processing element to process the received marker response signal obtained from the electronic marker device to generate marker device data indicative of identity and/or position of the placed electronic marker device, and further process the magnetic field signals obtained from the buried utility locator to generate utility data indicative of position of the buried utility relative to the ground surface; a computing device communicatively coupled to the buried utility locator, including a second processing element and an association module coupled to the processing element, the association module being configured to receive the generated marker device data and the utility data from the buried utility locator, associate the marker device data to the utility data, and store the associated marker device data and the utility data into a non-transitory memory associated with the computing device such that the utility data is retrievable from the non-transitory memory based in part on the marker device data; characterized by a display unit and an associated virtual display module configured to display, virtually, based on the utility data, the buried utility on the display unit and to update the position of the displayed buried utility on the display unit based on corresponding movements of the locator above the ground surface. an electronic marker device placed below a ground surface; a buried utility locator including: a position sensing module; a marker excitation device to generate and provide a marker excitation signal to the electronic marker device; a locator front-end subsystem to receive a marker response signal from the electronic marker device responsive to the marker excitation signal and magnetic field signals emitted from a buried utility in proximity to the electronic marker device; and a first processing element to process the received marker response signal obtained from the electronic marker device to generate marker device data indicative of identity and/or position of the placed electronic marker device, and further process the magnetic field signals obtained from the buried utility locator to generate utility data indicative of position of the buried utility relative to the ground surface; a marker excitation device to generate and provide a marker excitation signal to the electronic marker device; a locator front-end subsystem to receive a marker response signal from the electronic marker device responsive to the marker excitation signal and magnetic field signals emitted from a buried utility in proximity to the electronic marker device; and a first processing element to process the received marker response signal obtained from the electronic marker device to generate marker device data indicative of identity and/or position of the placed electronic marker device, and further process the magnetic field signals obtained from the buried utility locator to generate utility data indicative of position of the buried utility relative to the ground surface; a computing device communicatively coupled to the buried utility locator, including a second processing element and an association module coupled to the processing element, the association module being configured to receive the generated marker device data and the utility data from the buried utility locator, associate the marker device data to the utility data, and store the associated marker device data and the utility data into a non-transitory memory associated with the computing device such that the utility data is retrievable from the non-transitory memory based in part on the marker device data; characterized by a display unit and an associated virtual display module configured to display, virtually, based on the utility data, the buried utility on the display unit and to update the position of the displayed buried utility on the display unit based on corresponding movements of the locator above the ground surface.