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Ninomiya, 2004 Lithologic Mapping With Multispectral ASTER TIR and
Ninomiya, 2004 Lithologic Mapping With Multispectral ASTER TIR and
Ninomiya, 2004 Lithologic Mapping With Multispectral ASTER TIR and
Yoshiki Ninomiya
Geological Survey of Japan, AIST
ABSTRACT
ASTER, launched in December, 1999, composed of three subsystems, each of which multispectrally observes the
reflected or emitted radiation from the surface of the earth to space in VNIR (visible and near infrared), SWIR
(shortwave infrared) and TIR (thermal infrared) wavelength regions, respectively. ASTER-VNIR has three spectral
bands with a spatial resolution of 15m, and the one of which in near infrared has an along track stereo observation
capability to produce high quality Digital Elevation Model (DEM). ASTER-SWIR has six spectral bands with a spatial
resolution of 30m, which are mainly designed for discriminating altered minerals bearing hydroxyl. ASTER-TIR has five
spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 90m, which presents us a powerful tool for identifying quartz and carbonate
minerals as well as discriminating types of silicate rocks. The author have successfully developed a robust method for
detecting quartzite and carbonate rocks as well as classifying type of igneous rocks with ASTER TIR radiance data
without atmospheric corrections (Level-1B data). Here in this paper, a new vegetation index that stably works on
Level-1B data is defined for masking vegetation pixels. Then, reflectance spectra of minerals in SWIR region measured
in the laboratory are analyzed to define calcite index, OH-bearing altered minerals indices and alunite index for
discriminating each mineral by ASTER-SWIR. The defined indices are applied to SWIR data of ASTER Level-1B
radiance at the sensor data observing Cuprite area in Nevada, USA, and the discussions are made on the results by
comparing the well-known geology of the area. Also, the result of calcite index is compared with the result of applying
well-characterized carbonate index defined for ASTER-TIR to clarify the strong point of each index.
Keywords: geology, quartz, calcite, dolomite, silicate, igneous rock, SiO2 content, hydrothermally altered minerals
1. BASICS
1.1 ASTER
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER1) sensor obtains multispectral image of
earth not only in visible to near infrared (VNIR; ASTER has 3 bands in 0.5 to 0.9 micron with 15m resolution, with a
stereoscopic capability for the band in near infrared) and in shortwave infrared (SWIR; 6 bands in 1.6 to 2.5 micron for
ASTER with 30m resolution) spectral regions, but it has 5 bands in thermal infrared (TIR) region with 90m resolution
and less than 0.3K noise equivalent delta temperature (NE∆T) for the blackbody at 300K. The radiometric resolution
(NE∆ρ) of the bands in VNIR is equal or lower than 0.5%, and the one of the bands in SWIR is at most 1.3%, except for
band 6 is 0.5% and band 8 is 1.0%. The center wavelength of each band is shown in Figure 1 for VNIR and SWIR, and
in Figure 2 for TIR. A scene of ASTER covers about 60 x 60 square km area.
ASTER observes more than 500 scenes everyday in average, and basically all of the observed data are processed to
generate Level-1A data. All the Level-1A data satisfying a condition of detected cloud coverage ratio are processed for
nominal radiometric and geometric corrections to generate Level-1B radiance at the sensor data product. Then, a series
of Level-2B data products of physical parameters including reflectance data with nominal atmospheric corrections are
generated on the basis of user request. Also, DEM is generated under the user request with the along track stereo
observation in the near IR channel (band 3) of VNIR, and distributed as a series of Level-4 data products, then, a
geometrically well corrected orthorectified Level-3A product is generated, which is radiometrically equivalent to the
Level-1B radiance at the sensor. The conversion of the Level-1B (or Level-3A) DN data of ASTER band i to the
radiance (w/m2/sr/microns) at the sensor is accomplished with the next equation.
Yoshiki.Ninomiya@aist.go.jp; phone 81 298 61-3975; fax 81 298 61-3788; http://www.gsj.jp; Geological Survey of Japan, National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, AIST7, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 3058567 Japan
180 Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites VII, edited by Roland Meynart,
Steven P. Neeck, Haruhisa Shimoda, Joan B. Lurie, Michelle L. Aten, Proceedings of SPIE
Vol. 5234 (SPIE, Bellingham, WA, 2004) · 0277-786X/04/$15 · doi: 10.1117/12.511902
2. DEFINITION OF INDICES
2.1 Indices by ASTER VNIR
2.1.1 Vegetation index
The most widely acknowledged vegetation index is NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), defined as
NIR − red
NDVI = , (2)
NIR + red
band3 − band 2
NDVI = ,
band 3 + band 2
(3)
where bandi corresponds to any kind of data related to ASTER band i, for example, the Level-1B registered radiance at
the sensor data, the Level-2B01 surface radiance data or the Level-2B05 surface reflectance data, but here in this study,
Level-1B data are applied. The result of NDVI on the four ASTER data scenes observing the study area is shown in
Figure 6.
Figure 6 suggests the instability of NDVI when it is applied to the data without atmospheric corrections. Another
vegetation index (stabilized vegetation index; sVI) is newly defined here as
by utilizing the spectral property of vegetation described in the former chapter, for the purpose of somewhat stabilized
functioning against atmospherically uncorrected data. The applied result is shown in Figure 7. The newly defined
vegetation index is compared with NVDI, and a technique for more stabilized detection of vegetation pixels is
considered in the next chapter.
band 6 × band 9
CI SWIR = . (5)
band 8 × band8
The applied result of CISWIR to the ASTER data scenes observing the full study area is shown in Figure 9.
band 4 × band 7
OHI a = . (6)
band 6 × band 6
The second group of the altered hydroxy minerals including pyrophillite, although not shown in Figure 1, has a deep
and sharp absorption feature at ASTER band 5 spectral region. To detect this group of the minerals, the second OH
bearing altered minerals index, OHIb, is defined as
The third group represented by kaolinite and alunite has absorption both at ASTER band 5 and 6 spectral regions. OHIa
and OHIb would be useful in discriminating hydrothermally altered minerals into the three groups.
The applied result of OHIa and OHIb to the ASTER Level-1B data scenes observing the main study area is shown in
Figure 10 and Figure 11, respectively.
band 7 × band 7
ALI = . (8)
band 5 × band8
The functioning of ALI is not yet analyzed well, but predictably, using (not just replacing) ì band4î instead of ì band5î
(i.e., band4*band7/band8/band8) would possibly improve the performance of separating alunite in the third group of
altered minerals, however, equation (6) is adopted as ALI here. The applied result of ALI to the ASTER Level-1B data
scenes observing the main study area is shown in Figure 12.
band12
SI = . (9)
band13
SI surely correlates to the bulk SiO2 content in silicate, typically igneous rocks, but also it is somewhat sensitive to
carbonates. To eliminate the unexpected property of SI, bulk SiO2 content index separated for carbonates, SI-i, is
defined as
i
− band12 band12 ⋅ band14
SI i = = i +1
. (10)
band13 ⋅ CI i
band13
A theoretical and practical analysis on the indices clarified that SI-3 is stable to temperature and atmospheric variations8.
Generally, ì 0.9î of SI-3 is a good boundary between mafic/ultramafic and felsic/intermediate igneous rocks.
The practical stability of QI is proved by a theoretical analysis against atmospheric and temperature conditions8. It
should be noted that QI is not an identifier of quartz content in the rock. For example, typical felsic plutonic rocks
represented by granite usually contain relatively much both in quartz and alkali feldspars; however, QI is rather low for
them. This occurs because alkali feldspars indicate very low QI. It is primary sensitive to pure quartz or quartzite, and
secondary sensitive to siliceous rocks (usually sedimentary ones) that contain relatively much quartz with less feldspar.
Generally, ì 1.05î for primary threshold and ì 1.035 to 1.045î (case by case) for secondary threshold function well in
detecting quartz and siliceous rocks. Additionally, the most common sulfate mineral, gypsum, indicates especially low
QI, so that it would be useful as an identifier of gypsum.
band13
CI TIR = . (12)
band14
The application result of the index to a set of multi-temporal ASTER Level-1B data suggested the correlation to the
temperature7, as the correlation of CITIR with the brightness temperature derived from the ASTER data by the Planckís
law with the equation
c2
BT13 = , (13)
c
λ13 × ln 5 1 + 1
λ13 × Rad13
where c1 = 1.1911 × 10 , c 2 = 1.439 × 10 , and λ13 , the center wavelength (µm) of ASTER band 13, = 10.6
8 4
To improve the heavy dependency of CITIR against the surface temperature, it is proposed to apply CITIR to the
normalized ASTER Level-1B data by setting the brightness temperature of band 13 to a fixed temperature, and
approved that this normalization process is very effective9. The normalized ASTER Level-1B data (nRad) at band i is
calculated after the Planckís law as
λ c
exp 13 ⋅ ln 5 1 + 1 − 1
λi λ13 × Rad13
nRad i = Rad i × , (14)
c2
exp −1
λi × nT ε
a13
where λi is the center wavelength (µm) of ASTER TIR band i, ε a13 is assumed emissivity in band 13 spectral
region, and nT is the fixed temperature (K) to be normalized. Here in this study, ε a13 is adopted as 1.0, and nT is
adopted as 300.
The applied result of CITIR to the normalized ASTER Level-1B data, Figure 13, suggests the effectiveness of the
3. DISCUSSIONS
3.1 Vegetation index
Comparing the result of a new vegetation index proposed here (sVI; Figure 7) with the NDVI (Figure 8) applied to
atmospherically uncorrected ASTER radiance at the sensor data, the same tendency is found, that is, brighter for the
data of 5th August 2000 and 1st August 2001 than the other two data. This is expected that atmospheric effects cause this
artifact. Looking the details, the darkest pixels in the bright two scenes still have higher brightness level than the
brightest pixels (vegetation pixels) in the other two scenes for NDVI. This means it is impossible to detect vegetation
pixels with just a single threshold for multi-temporal scenes if NDVI is applied to radiance at the sensor data. On the
other hand, although the average brightness level is affected by the atmospheric effects, the brightness for the vegetation
pixels show especially high intensity for all the scenes for sVI. This means just a single threshold for sVI would be
applicable as the indicator whether the scene includes vegetation area or not. For more stable detection of vegetation
pixels, a standardization of the index by the average of the full scene, i.e.,
sVI
sVIs = , (15)
mean(sVI )
is effective, as shown in Figure 14. This technique of the standardization is effective only if the target material (in this
case, vegetation) is the minor material in the study area, however, for the purpose of detecting vegetation in
arid-semiarid region, this would very useful.
4. CONCLUSION
A vegetation index which works stably for radiance at the sensor data without atmospheric correction in arid-semiarid
region and several mineralogic indices for ASTER-TIR and SWIR data are defined from the spectral emissivity and
reflectance property of the respective target materials. The indices are applied to the multi-temporal ASTER Level-1B
radiance at the sensor data scenes observing the study area in the Cuprite mining district in Nevada, U.S.A. It is shown
that a standardization of the indices with the mean value of the full ASTER scene is effective in achieving further
stability of the mapping. The results agree well to the well-known geology of the study area. It is suggested that the
proposed indices will work generally in any arid-semiarid region, and will function well as a preprocessor of a more
detailed lithologic mapping that will not work generally. The concept of lithologic mapping with ASTER radiance at
the sensor data presented here has advantages over the ones proposed so far assuming the input as emissivity or
reflectance data, as follows: 1. Applicability to the Level-1B data makes it highly productive mapping concept. 2.
Applicability to the Level-3A data enables it for combined analysis with DEM data in GIS system easily. It would be
possible to obtain preliminary lithologic information at a standardized specific basis with the nominal threshold values
for each index to detect the rock types using just only ASTER data all over the world with sparse vegetation and well
exposed rocks, which would contribute on achieving lower cost and higher accuracy in geological mapping.
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25%
8 9 10 11 12
wavelength(µ m)
Figure 1 Reflectance spectra1 of (a) kaolinite, Figure 2 Emissivity spectra2 of (a) carbonate
(b) montmorillonite, (c) alunite, (d) calcite, (e) rock, (b) quartose rock, (c) granite, (d) diorite,
granite, (f) andesite, (g) vegetation, with the (e) gabbro, (f) peridotite, with the convolved
bandpasses of ASTER VNIR and SWIR. data to the ASTER TIR bandpasses.
Eastern Hills
Western Hills
a in
unt
Mo
a ll
n ew
Cuprite S to
(a) 5km
(b)
(c) (d)
Figure 3 ASTER VNIR false color images of Figure 4 Geological map of the study area after
the study area, (a) 5th August, 2000, (b) 1st Ashley and Abrams (1980). Green region in the
August, 2001, (c) 24th August, 2001, (d) 21st western hills is Cambrian sediments, and bluish
April, 2002. Red rectangle in (b) shows the and reddish in the eastern hills is Tertially
main study area. volcanics.
Figure 7 A newly proposed vegetation index Figure 8 Reflectance spectra of iron oxide
(sVI) for ASTER Level-1B data without minerals, by Drury and Hunt (1989).
atmospheric corrections, scaled 0.5 to 1.0.