Application of optical and radar data for lineaments mapping in Kerdous inlier of the Anti Atlas belt, Morocco

<p>Lineament mapping is an important step for lithological and hydrothermal alterations mapping. It is considered as an efficient research task which can be a part of structural investigation and mineral ore deposits identification. The availability of optical as well as radar remote sensing data, such as Landsat 8 OLI, Terra ASTER and ALOS PALSAR data, allows lineaments mapping at regional and national scale. The accuracy of the obtained results depends strongly on the spatial and spectral resolution of the data. The aim of this study was to compare Landsat 8 OLI, Terra ASTER, and radar ALOS PALSAR satellite data for automatic and manual lineaments extraction. The module Line of PCI Geomatica software was applied on PC1 OLI, PC3 ASTER and HH and HV polarization images to automatically extract geological lineaments. However, the manual extraction was achieved using the RGB color composite of the directional filtered images N - S (0°), NE - SW (45°) and E - W (90°) of the OLI panchromatic band 8. The obtained lineaments from automatic and manual extraction were compared against the faults and photo-geological lineaments digitized from the existing geological map of the study area. The extracted lineaments from PC1 OLI and ALOS PALSAR polarizations images showed the best correlation with faults and photo-geological lineaments. The results indicate that the lineaments extracted from HH and HV polarizations of ALOS PALSAR radar data used in this study, with 1499 and 1507 extracted lineaments, were more efficient for structural lineament mapping, as well as the PC1 OLI image with 1057 lineaments.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong> Remote Sensing . OLI. ALOS PALSAR . ASTER . Kerdous Inlier . Anti Atlas</p>