Spectral unmixing of hyperspectral imagery for mineral exploration: comparison of results from SFSI and AVIRIS

Abstract

Hyperspectral image data sets acquired near Cuprite, Nevada, in 1995 with the Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) Full Spectrum Imager (SFSI) and in 1996 with the Airborne Visible-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) are analysed with a spectral unmixing procedure and the results compared. The nominal pixel centre spacings are 1.0 by 1.5 m for SFSI and 16.2 by 18.1 m for AVIRIS across track and along track, respectively; the region imaged by SFSI is a small portion of the full AVIRIS scene. Both data cubes have nominal spectral band centre spacings of approximately 10 nm. The image data, converted to radiance units, are atmospherically corrected and converted to surface reflectances. Spectral end members are extracted automatically from the two data sets; those representing mineral species common to both are compared to each other and to reference spectra obtained with a field instrument, the Portable Infrared Mineral Analyser (PIMA). The full sets of end members are used in a constrained linear unmixing of the respective hyperspectral image cubes. The resulting unmixing fraction images derived from the AVIRIS and SFSI data sets for the minerals alunite, buddingtonite, kaolinite, and opal correlate well, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.75 to 0.91, after compensation for shadowing and misregistration effects.