Analysis of hyperspectral and lidar data: Remote optical mineralogy and fracture identification

Abstract

Karst systems are widely recognized as highly complex and often extremely productive reservoirs of water as well as petroleum. They are also often associated with mineralization. The availability of a large (several tens of square kilometers), well-preserved paleokarst outcrop is rare; therefore, maximizing the information that we can extract from examples like the Franklin Mountains is critical to the study of karst-related fl uid fl ow. The mapping process is confounded by the need to map very large areas to fi nd relatively small and somewhat unpredictable zones of extreme deformation. Moreover, the brecciated regions interpreted to be of karst origin are often composed of the same lithology as the surrounding rock and thus make traditional remote sensing data such as multispectral satellite imagery or photographic data inadequate to delineate such systems.