Search

ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) thermal infrared imagery over a 389 km × 387 km area in northern Nevada (38.5°-42°N, 114°-118.5°W) was analyzed to evaluate its capability for accurate and cost-effective identification and mapping of quartz and carbonate minerals at regional to local scales. The geology of this area has been mapped at a wide range of scales and includes a diversity of rock types and unconsolidated surficial materials, many of which are composed primarily of quartz and carbonate minerals. This area is also endowed with a wide variety of economically and scientifically important ore deposit types that contain an array of commodities (Au, Ag, Pb, Zn, Cu, Mo, W, Sn, Be, F, Mn, Fe, Sb, Hg, and barite). The hydrothermal systems that generated these deposits frequently deposited large amounts of quartz where fluids cool, and generally smaller amounts of calcite or dolomite by other mechanisms. To identify and map quartz and carbonate minerals, band ratioing techniques were developed based on the shapes of laboratory reference spectra and applied to ASTER Level 2 surface emissivity products of 108 overlapping scenes. These mineral maps were mosaicked into a single coverage that was overlain with published, vector-format geologic maps of various scales to determine which geologic terranes, formations, and geomorphic features correspond to identified quartz or carbonate. Where quartz or carbonate minerals were mapped in rocks composed primarily of other minerals, they were inferred to be hydrothermal in origin and compared to known occurrences of hydrothermal alteration and mineralization. The ASTER-based quartz mapping identified thick sequences of quartzite, bedded radiolarian chert, quartz sandstone, conglomerates with clasts of quartzite and chert, silicic and/or altered rhyolites, and silicic welded tuffs. Alluvial fan surfaces, sand dunes, and beach deposits composed of quartz and/or carbonate are prominent, well-mapped features. Quartz was also identified in smaller bodies of jasperoid, quartzalunite, and quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration, hot spring silica sinter terraces, and several diatomite and perlite mines and prospects. The ASTER-based carbonate mapping identified thick sequences of dolomite, limestone, and marble, as well as small hot spring travertine deposits. Eolian carbonate was identified in several playas. Dolomite exhibited a stronger carbonate response than calcite, as predicted based on their thermal spectral characteristics. Quartz was detected at lower concentrations than carbonates because of the greater strength of the quartz reststrahlen features in the thermal infrared compared to the bending-related spectral features of carbonates. The 90 m ground pixel size of the ASTER thermal imagery prevents the identification of small-scale features. Despite this limitation, numerous bodies of hydrothermal quartz were detected in or near known Carlin- type gold deposits, distal disseminated Au-Ag deposits, high- and low-sulfidation epithermal Au-Ag deposits, and geothermal areas. Detection of hydrothermal carbonate was rare and mainly in geothermal areas. The ASTER-based thermal quartz and carbonate mapping demonstrated here can be used in well-studied or frontier areas to verify the accuracy of existing geologic maps, guide future detailed stratigraphic and structural mapping in lithologically complex terranes and allochthons, and identify hydrothermal features for exploration and resource assessment purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest fires leave behind a changed ecosystem with a patchwork of surface cover that includes ash, charred organic matter, soils and soil minerals, and dead, damaged, and living vegetation. The distributions of these materials affect post-fire processes of erosion, nutrient cycling, and vegetation regrowth. We analyzed high spatial resolution (2. 4 m pixel size) Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data collected over the Cerro Grande fire, to map post-fire surface cover into 10 classes, including ash, soil minerals, scorched conifer trees, and green vegetation. The Cerro Grande fire occurred near Los Alamos, New Mexico, in May 2000. The AVIRIS data were collected September 3, 2000. The surface cover map revealed complex patterns of ash, iron oxide minerals, and clay minerals in areas of complete combustion. Scorched conifer trees, which retained dry needles heated by the fire but not fully combusted by the flames, were found to cover much of the post-fire landscape. These scorched trees were found in narrow zones at the edges of completely burned areas. A surface cover map was also made using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) data, collected September 5, 2000, and a maximum likelihood, supervised classification. When compared to AVIRIS, the Landsat classification grossly overestimated cover by dry conifer and ash classes and severely underestimated soil and green vegetation cover. In a comparison of AVIRIS surface cover to the Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) map of burn severity, the BAER high burn severity areas did not capture the variable patterns of post-fire surface cover by ash, soil, and scorched conifer trees seen in the AVIRIS map. The BAER map, derived from air photos, also did not capture the distribution of scorched trees that were observed in the AVIRIS map. Similarly, the moderate severity class of Landsat-derived burn severity maps generated from the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) calculation had low agreement with the AVIRIS classes of scorched conifer trees. Burn severity and surface cover images were found to contain complementary information, with the dNBR map presenting an image of degree of change caused by fire and the AVIRIS-derived map showing specific surface cover resulting from fire. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A scheme to discriminate and identify materials having overlapping spectral absorption features has been developed and tested based on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Tetracorder system. The scheme has been applied to remotely sensed imaging spectroscopy data acquired by the Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument. This approach was used to identify the minerals calcite, epidote, and chlorite in the upper Animas River watershed, Colorado. The study was motivated by the need to characterize the distribution of calcite in the watershed and assess its acid-neutralizing potential with regard to acidic mine drainage. Identification of these three minerals is difficult because their diagnostic spectral features are all centered at 2.3 μm, and have similar shapes and widths. Previous studies overestimated calcite abundance as a result of these spectral overlaps. The use of a reference library containing synthetic mixtures of the three minerals in varying proportions was found to simplify the task of identifying these minerals when used in conjunction with a rule-based expert system. Some inaccuracies in the mineral distribution maps remain, however, due to the influence of a fourth spectral component, sericite, which exhibits spectral absorption features at 2.2 and 2.4 μm that overlap the 2.3-μm absorption features of the other three minerals. Whereas the endmember minerals calcite, epidote, chlorite, and sericite can be identified by the method presented here, discrepancies occur in areas where all four occur together as intimate mixtures. It is expected that future work will be able to reduce these discrepancies by including reference mixtures containing sericite. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]