Detecting Clay Minerals in Hydrothermal Alteration Areas with Integration of ASTER Image and Spectral Data in Kösedag-Zara (Sivas), Turkey

WOS: 000431330200013
Remote sensing technology and its terrestrial components are more useful than classical geological investigation in mineral exploration and mapping the hydrothermal alteration areas and help to investigate larger areas in short time. Intrusive and volcanic rocks, namely Kosedag syenite and Karatas volcanics in Kosedag (Zara) area shows argillic alteration zones. Two different test area were chosen and sampled for mineralogical studies. XRD-CF investigations showed that kaolinite and illite are the dominant clay minerals in test areas of A and B respectively. The spectroradiometer measurements were carried out 5 times on different surfaces of clayey samples with self-illuminated contact-probe lens within the wavelength range of 350-2500 nm. The spectroradiometer measurements used as endmember were resampled to ASTER short wave infrared (SWIR) bandwidths. Band ratio, principal component and decorrelation stretching analysis were performed to visualize the distribution of clay minerals. In spectral classification method, matched filtering (MF) was used for integrating the satellite image and spectroradiometer measurement data. It was concluded that co-interpretations of the band ratio, principal component, decorrelation stretching analysis, MF results and geological map are very useful in determining, classifying and mapping of the argillic alteration zones related to hydrothermal processes on ASTER image and they seem to be very useful to identify the target areas for mineral exploration.
Foundation of Cumhuriyet University [M-613]
The Research Foundation of Cumhuriyet University supported this study (Project No: M-613). Huseyin Yalcin (Prof. Dr., Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, Turkey) and Omer Bozkaya (Prof. Dr., Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey) are kindly thanked for useful comments during the XRD-CF analyses.