Utilization of supervised classification in structural and lithological mapping of Wadi Al-Marwah Area, NW Arabian Shield, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Wadi Al-Marwah area is located in the northwestern part of the Arabian Shield, Saudi Arabia. It is mainly covered by Precambrian igneous and sedimentary rock units. This area was not subjected to previous detailed lithological or structural mapping. This study aims to apply supervised classification technique of remotely sensed digital satellite data of Landsat 7 for detailed lithological and structural mapping of the area. The fusion between multispectral Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM)+ data and high-resolution panchromatic ETM+ band-8 produced a color composite fused image for the study area, scale 1:50,000. The structural lineaments of the study area were extracted and interpreted from the digital imageries data. Little discrepancies or improvements were detected when combining the supervised classification results with the Landsat ratios or principal component analysis. These highlighted the benefits of multispectral classification, especially in terms of lithologic discrimination. The overall results of image processing techniques, applied in this work, were excellent and succeeded in the performance of a more detailed and accurate lithological and structural maps (scale 1:50,000) than the previous published maps for the investigated area.