Assessment of Hyperspectral, Multispectral, Radar, and Digital Elevation Model data in structural lineaments mapping: A case study from Ameln valley shear zone, Western Anti-Atlas Morocco

Abstract

The analysis and the exploitation of remote sensing datasets have an effective contribution to geological studies, particularly the lineament extraction process could play an important role in tectonic features identification, well as new ore deposits, hydrogeological, and petroleum resources prospection. In this study, we applied an automatic approach to map structural lineaments in the Ameln valley area of the western Anti-Atlas province. The aim of this work is the mapping of structural lineaments in the region, then the comparison of the results of multi-source datasets in automatic lineaments extraction, where six images have been used including, HyMap, ASTER, ALOS PALSAR DEM, Sentinel-2A, and Sentinel-1A VH and VV polarizations. The principal component analysis was applied on optical images, a 7x7 Kernel matrix in four directions, N–S, NE-SW, E-W, and SE-NW for HyMap hyperspectral data image in order to achieve a clear and detailed contrast of structural features. ALOS PALSAR DEM was used for lineaments mapping after applying hill shading in the main four directions. Combined with the field investigations, the high resolution HyMap data image revealed relatively the highest number of lineaments (2091 lineaments), with lengths varying from a few hundred meters (100 m) to a kilometer wide (1.2 km). Additionally, the NNE–SSW, NE-SW, and ENE-WSW are the main obtained lineaments trends, where the NE-SW lineaments set highlights the main faults orientation in the study area. Whereas, a good number of lineaments was detected using elevation data of ALOS PALSAR and VH polarization data of Sentinel-1A that allowed the best discrimination of trending fracture system, leading to achieve a detailed map of the structural discontinuities in the study region. The lineaments mapping results highlight the significant contribution of the late Ediacaran extensional event in the actual tectonic structuration of the eastern Kerdous inlier.