1887

Abstract

Conventional geological mapping using aerial photo interpretation coupled with field visits is often handicapped in areas with tropical weathering or sand cover in arid regions. High resolution airborne geophysical data acquisition over large areas covered by overburden can augment geological mapping of these areas provided information extraction is done in an adequate, automated and objective way. We suggest that the integration of airborne geophysical data with space-borne remote sensing data suites using fuzzy partitioning clustering meets these criteria. The outcome of unsupervised clustering is a classified zonal map which, in combination with some field inspections, produces a high resolution lithology map, in this case 100 m by 100 m pixel size, which is by power of spatial resolution far superior to any conventional mapping and can therefore provide new incentive for geological understanding of the area, modelling or mineral exploration. Our new approach to map hard rock geology hidden beneath overburden has been applied to a portion of largely sand and sediment covered southern Namibia by integrating airborne magnetic, radiometric and Landsat 7 data suites. The classified zonal map obtained from these data was converted to a lithology map by attributing what is known from previous geological investigations of this area. Apart from the structural control of known mineral showings, the resultant map clearly displays an area requiring further grass-root exploration.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.378.SAGA2013_DAY1_SESSION_2C_Eberle
2013-10-06
2024-03-29
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609-pdb.378.SAGA2013_DAY1_SESSION_2C_Eberle
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