Application of optical and radar satellite images for mapping tectonic lineaments in kerdous inlier of the Anti-Atlas belt, Morocco

Abstract

Lineament mapping is an important step for lithological and hydrothermal alterations mapping. It is an efficient research task and a part of structural investigation and mineral ore deposits identification. The availability of optical as well as radar remote sensing data, such as Landsat 8 OLI, Terra ASTER and ALOS PALSAR data, allows lineaments mapping at regional and national scale. The accuracy of the obtained results depends strongly on the spatial and spectral resolution of the data. The aim of this study is to compare Landsat 8 OLI, Terra ASTER, and radar ALOS PALSAR satellite data for automatic and manual lineaments extraction. The module Line of PCI Geomatica software was applied on PC1 OLI, PC3 ASTER and HH and HV polarization images to automatically extract geological lineaments. Moreover, the manual extraction was achieved using the RGB color composite of the directional filtered images N - S (0°), NE - SW (45°) and E − W (90°) of the OLI panchromatic band 8. The obtained lineaments from automatic and manual extraction were compared to the faults and photo-geological lineaments digitized from the existing geological map of the study area. The extracted lineaments from PC1 OLI and ALOS PALSAR polarizations images showed the best correlation with faults and photo-geological lineaments. The results indicate that the lineaments extracted from HH and HV polarizations of ALOS PALSAR radar data and PC1 OLI were more efficient for structural lineament mapping.