Automatic Lineament Extraction Method in Mineral Exploration Using CANNY Algorithm and Hough Transform

Abstract

Copper mineralization in Kahang porphyry mining district as a tectonically active region in the center of Iran, at the middle of Urmia–Dokhtar magmatic assemblage (UDMA), has been drastically controlled by structural lineaments. Determination of these footprint features is a good guide to identify the location of ore occurrences. One way to recognize lineaments is to process satellite imagery along with geophysical data. Although the visual extraction of lineaments from such data set is the most common method, automatic methods for detecting lineaments can highly reduce user errors and runtime. The most efficient automated methods in this regard are those that simultaneously take edge detection filters with lineament extraction algorithms into consideration. In this work, the CANNY algorithm was employed as an edge-detector filter at first and later Hough transform was used to extract linear features from satellite imagery and geophysical magnetometry data. The proposed methods were implemented on the high-resolution imagery data collected by QuickBird satellite along with ground-based magnetometry data to extract the shallow and deep-seated lineaments. After investigating and plotting this structural controller in a map, the dominant orientation was in the NE–SW direction perpendicular to the UDMA. Generated lineament density map also indicated that the eastern, southeast, and western portions of the area had high potential for porphyry copper mineralization.