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IDENTIFICATION AND MAPPING OF HYDROTHERMALLY ALTERED MINERALS

IN AND AROUND ASKOT BASEMETAL MINERALIZATION OF KUMOAN
HIMALAYA, INDIA USING EO-1 HYPERION DATA Research ....

Article · January 2015

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ISSN 2321–835 IJARSGG (2015) Vol.3, No.1, 1-8
Research Article
International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and
Geography

IDENTIFICATION AND MAPPING OF

HYDROTHERMALLY ALTERED MINERALS IN
AND AROUND ASKOT BASEMETAL
MINERALIZATION OF KUMOAN HIMALAYA,
INDIA USING EO-1 HYPERION DATA
H. Govil
Department of Geology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India (himgeo@gmail.com)
(Published online: 15th January 2015)
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ABSTRACT: In the present study alteration minerals in and around of Askot basemetal mineralization
of the Kumaon Himalaya, India were identified and mapped using EO-1 Hyperion data. EO-1 Hyperion
data were acquired on demand from the United State Geological Survey (USGS) on April 2010.
Sequential analysis of the Hyperion data, the minimum noise fraction, pixel purity index, n-dimensional
visualizer, spectral matching and spectral angle mapper, identified some alteration minerals in the
alteration zones surrounding the Askot basemetal mineralization. Four minerals i.e. Chlorite, Goethite,
Illite, Muscovite, were identified and mapped with the help of Hyperion data. Field and laboratory
analysis of the samples were in good confirmation with the mineral maps of the Askot area. These
mineral maps are the first hyperspectral overview of the surface mineralogy in and around of the Askot
basemetal mineralization. This study proves the ability of Hyperion hyperspectral data in locating
alteration minerals in the Kumaon Himalaya, India.

KEYWORDS: Hyperion, Hydrothermally altered minerals

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1. INTRODUCTION: The EO-1 (earth observation) Hyperion is the only available space borne hyperspectral
data available till today. The EO-1 was the part of NASA New Millennium Programme (NMP), which was
created to flight-validate instrument and spacecraft technologies that could enable new or more cost-effective
approaches to Earth observation. Both advanced multispectral imagers and hyperspectral imagers were part of
the NMP Earth Observing-1 mission (1).
The Hyperion imaging spectrometer was the first spectrometer mounted on the NASA EO-1 satellite
launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base on November 21, 2000 and is now in an orbit one minute behind
Landsat 7. The EO-1 satellite contains three observing instruments supported by a variety of newly developed
space technologies. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) is a prototype for a new generation of Landsat-7
Thematic Mapper. The Hyperion Imaging Spectrometer is the first high spatial resolution imaging spectrometer
in the orbit of the earth. The Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) Atmospheric Corrector (LAC) is a
high spectral resolution wedge imaging spectrometer designed to measure atmospheric water vapour content
(2). Instrument performances are validated and carefully monitored through a combination of radiometric
calibration approaches: solar, lunar, stellar, earth (vicarious), and atmospheric observations complemented by
on-board calibration lamps and extensive pre-launch calibration. Techniques for spectral calibration of space-
based sensors have been tested and validated with Hyperion. ALI and Hyperion instrument performance
continue to meet or exceed predictions well beyond the planned one-year program (2, 3).
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 2

Many researchers have evaluated its capability for different purposes like geological purposes (1, 4, 5),
regolith mapping (6) (7) vegetation (8-10) and marine sciences (11) etc. and had found suitable in their studies.
In this research, the Hyperion data has been utilized in the rugged terrain of the Himalayas for
hydrothermal alteration mineral search and found it to be very informative.

2. GEOLOGIC SETTING: One of the most prominent and typical feature, occurring in the Kumaon and
Garhwal Himalaya is the presence of the Crystallines rocks in the form of nappe and klippe. These are Askot
crystallines, Chiplakot crystallines, Baijnath crystallines, Satpuli crystallines and the biggest among them
Almora Dudhatoli Crystallines (12). Naming of these crystallines is based on the local name.
Askot basemetal mineralization occurred in the Askot crystallines of the Kumaon Himalaya, India. The
Askot Crystallines are underlain by the much younger rocks of the Inner Sedimentary Belt (ISB) of Kumaon
Lesser Himalaya, delimited in the north by the Main Central Thrust and in the south by the North Almora
Thrust.
The dominant rock types exposed in this study area include augen gneiss, granite gneiss, garnetiferous-
biotite gneiss, biotite-muscovite gneiss, calcsilicates and quartzites. Dikes of aplites and pegmatites are common
in the rocks of higher (northern) horizons of this zone. The major rock types are gneisses, quartzites, variety of
schists, calcsilicates, and leucogranite dikes especially at higher (northern) horizons ((13).
Many places, the Crystallines show strong evidence of shearing. Effects of shearing are evident in the
form of narrow, linear zones of cataclasis and mylonitization accompanied with the development of a strong
shear cleavage trending in the general direction of regional strike.

Fig I: Geological map of the study area

Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 3

3. METHODS AND RESULTS: The whole study was divided into two parts. First is laboratory analysis of
the Hyperion data and second is field verification of the mineral maps and samples collection for laboratory
spectral analysis.

4. LABORATORY ANALYSIS:

4.1. HYPERION DATA PROCESSING: Hyperion image of the EO-1 satellite contains 220 unique spectral
bands spanning region from 355 to 2577 nanometer (nm) at 10 nm bandwidth. The Level 1 radiometric (L1R)
product used in the study has 242 bands; only 198 of them are calibrated, band 8 to 57 for visible-to-near-
infrared (VNIR) and 77 to 224 in shortwave-infrared (SWIR) regions. The reason for not calibrating all 242
channels is mainly due to the detectors' low responsivity. The bands that are not calibrated are set to zero in
those channels (14). Hyperion has a single telescope and two spectrometers, one visible/near infrared (VNIR,
355 nm to 1000 nm) spectrometer and one shortwave infrared (SWIR, 900 nm to 2577 nm) spectrometer with
10 nm difference and 11 nm full-width at half maximum. A dichroic filter in the system reflects the spectral
region from 400 to 1000 nm to the VNIR spectrometer and transmits the region from 900 to 2500 nm to the
other SWIR spectrometer (15). An overlapping between 852 to 1058 nm occurs in the Hyperion sensor.
First and the most significant steps of hyperspectral data processing is the band selection. In this process
all the overlapping and inactive channels need to be removed and only those bands containing good signal (8-
57, 79-119, 133-164, 183-184 and 188-223) were selected for further processing. Apart from the bands
selection some other modifications like SNR estimation, streak removal, first and last sample modification and
VNIR and SWIR shift removal was also done in the data cube before atmospheric correction.

4.2. ATMOSPHERIC CORRECTION: Atmospheric correction using Fast Line-of-sight Atmospheric

Analysis of Spectral Hypercubes (FLAASH) has been used to convert radiance data to absolute reflectance in
W m-2 sr-1 μm-1. The FLAASH atmospheric correction algorithm/code is a software package developed by the
Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/VS), Hanscom AFB and Spectral Sciences,
Inc. (SSI) to support the analyses of visible to shortwave infrared (VIS - SWIR) hyperspectral and multispectral
imaging sensors (16). The algorithm derives its first-principle physics-based calculations from the
MODTRAN4 radiative transfer code (17, 18).

4.3. MINIMUM NOISE FRACTION (MNF): As suggested by Boardman and Kruse (1), the MNF rotation
transform is applied to determine the inherent dimensionality of image data, to segregate noise and to reduce the
computational requirements during subsequent processing. This is a two cascade principle component analysis
(PCA).
The first rotation is known as the noise whitening. In this rotation, the noise covariance matrix
decorrelate and rescale the noise in the data, which results in the transformed data in which noise has unit
variance and no band-to-band correlation (19).
Second rotation uses the noise whitened data generated by the first rotation. Inherent dimensionality of
the dataset can be determined by the eigenvalues and the associated images. Now the data space has two parts:
one part associated with large eigenvalues and coherent eigen images and another part with near-unity
eigenvalues and noise dominated images (19).The image pixels are represented by eigenvalues and the
dimensionality of the data is determined by examining these values.
It has been observed during the analysis of the Hyperion image of the study area that the first 15 bands
have the highest eigenvalues (>1), while the rest have values less than 1 (Fig. II). These low values are seen in
the image as noise. The first 15 MNF bands have been selected for further processing (Fig. III).
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 4

Fig II: MNF Eigenvalues plot

MNF band 1 MNF band 5

Fig III: MNF results
4.4. PIXEL PURITY INDEX (PPI): Pixel purity index is basically a function to identify the most spectrally
pure pixels in the feature space of the available bands. This is computed by repeatedly projecting n-dimensional
scatter plots on a random unit vector. It records extreme pixels in each projection and also the total number of
times each pixel is marked as extreme. Digital numbers of PPI image contain information corresponding to the
number of times that pixel is recorded as extreme.
The PPI image for the dataset under analysis has been generated from the selected MNF bands. The
spectra can be thought as points in dimensional space, where n is the number of bands. The figure IV-V is the
PPI image of the study area.
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 5

(a) (b)

Fig IV: (a) Pixel Purity Image, (b) PPI Plot

5.5. N-DIMENSIONAL VISUALIZER: n-dimensional visualizer is a function used to identify the purest
pixels and most extreme spectral responses in the multidimensional feature space of hyperspectral dataset. This
assists in visualizing the extreme pixel and identifying and selecting that pixel as an endmember for further
classification and map generation. n-dimensional visualizer has been used to identify the purest pixel in the
present dataset (Fig. V).

(a) (b)
Fig V: (a) n-dimensional visualizer (b) Endmembers spectra

5.6. HYPERION SPECTRAL SIGNATURES: Hyperion image of the study area has been used to identify
the mineral absorption features from the space based imaging spectroscopy. Though, the SNR (signal to noise
ratio) of the Hyperion image was very low, but still some good absorption features have been found reflecting
the mineralogy of that area. To know the exact absorption feature positions in the short wave infrared region
(SWIR), the USGS spectral library spectra have been resampled to the Hyperion wavelength, which is 10nm.
Hyperion data analysis has indicated the presence of the muscovite/illite and chlorite (Fig VI. a, b) in
the Askot area, which has been used as a known target site in the area. Absorption features at 2205 and 2345 nm
confirm the presence of the muscovite/Illite in the area. Chlorite absorption features at 2255nm, 2315 nm and
2345nm confirm the existing mineralogy of this area.
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 6

(a) (b)
Fig VI: Spectral signatures of the Hyperion image (a) Muscovite and chlorite Askot (b) Chlorite Askot

5.7. SPECTRAL ANGLE MAPPER (SAM): SAM is a physically based image classification that uses an n-
dimensional angle to match image spectra with the reference spectra. It calculates the angle between the spectra
and treats them as vectors in a space with dimensionality equal to the number of bands.
It is automated method for comparing the image spectra with the laboratory or library spectra. SAM
assumes that the data have been reduced to apparent reflectance. The algorithm determines the similarity
between two spectra by calculating the spectral angle between them, treating them as vectors in n-D space,
where n is the number of bands.
Four separate mineral maps for illite, goethite, clinochlore and muscovite using SAM have been
generated. Figure VI shows the mineral maps of the study area with respect to these minerals.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Fig VII: Mineral map of the Askot basetal mineralization (under bracket) (a) Chlorite (b) Goethite (c) Illite (d) Muscovite

6. FIELD VERIFICATIONS: Field investigations in the study were conducted in the months March 2012 for
verification of the results of the spectral angle mapper. The rock samples collected near the Askot basemetal
mineralization were analyzed using the ASD spectroradiometer in the lab of Indian Agriculture Research
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 7

institute, New Delhi India. All the four minerals, chlorite, goethite, illite, muscovite were identified in the field
and was confirmed with the laboratory spectral signatures.
Fig. VIII a shows the goethite mineral in Askot area along with the Illite mineral. A VNIR spectrum of
this figure clearly indicates the presence of the Goethite mineral and SWIR spectra indicates the Illite mineral.
Goethite is visible and infrared (VNIR) active mineral and generally shows distinct electronic absorption
features at 620nm and 900nm. Illite distinct absorption features at 2205 nm, which is due to the vibrational
absorption feature of AlOH two other absorption features at 2345 nm and 2440 nm due to the same molecule..
Fig. VIII b shows the spectra taken from the samples collected from the gossanised zone above the
Askot basemetal mineralization. This is a pure Goethite spectral and does not contain any spectral mixing in the
SWIR region. In general, Goethite spectral signatures can be identified in the VNIR region and SWIR region
show the mixing of the other minerals.
Fig. VIII c illustrates the muscovite mineral spectral signature of the sample collected near the Askot
basemetal mineralization area. The SWIR spectra of this sample indicate OH and H-O-H absorption features at
1400 and 1900 nm with deeper AlOH absorption feature at 2205nm.
Fig VIII d illustrates the chlorite spectral signatures of the samples collected near the Askot basemetal
mineralization. In chlorite absorption features at 2265 and 2355 are due to the presence of AlFe-OH or AlMg-
OH and MgOH. One additional AlOH absorption feature at 2205nm confirms the presence of muscovite
mineral in this spectrum.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. VIII: Laboratory spectral signatures of the field samples (a) Illite (b) Goethite (c) Muscovite (d) Chlorite
7. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: A careful processing of the Hyperion datacube followed by the
established techniques of mapping allowed us to identify and map the hydrothermally altered minerals in and
around of Askot basemetal mineralization of the Kumaon Himalaya India. Though the SNR of the Hyperion
images was very low but still it has given clear indication of different altered minerals available in this region.
Govil, H. / International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS and Geography, Vol.3, No. 1 8

These reported mineral are in good confirmation with the previous researchers work (20, 7, 12). Spectral angle
mapper classification results were found promising in the field as well as with the laboratory spectral signatures
results. Ability of the Hyperion data in Kumaon Himalaya, India, for hydrothermally alteration minerals, have
not been reported previously. This study shows that the Hyperion data can be used effectively in the formidable
and rugged terrain of the Himalaya for constraining field visit targets for mineral exploration.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I acknowledge the contribution of Dr. D. Ramakrishnan IIT Bombay, Dr. R. N.

Sahoo IARI and, Mr. Prashant Kawisher, Mr. Gautam Ghosh and for this study. This work was funded by
Natural Resource Data Management System (NRDMS), Department of Science and Technology (DST), India
through grant no. NRDMS/11/1669/10/Pr: 9.
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