APPLICATION OF WORLDVIEW-3 DATA IN ALTERATION MINERAL MAPPING IN CHADORMALU AREA, CENTRAL IRAN

Abstract. WorldView-3 (WV-3), launched in August 2014, is a commercial imaging satellite with high spatial resolution that measures reflected radiation in VNIR-SWIR regions in 16 bands. The main objective of this study was to discriminate the alteration minerals in Chadormalu iron deposit area, central Iran, using band ratio techniques on the selected bands of this satellite. To identify the appropriate band ratios the spectral bands of WV-3 were investigated and assessed. Regarding to Fe³⁺, Fe²⁺, Al-OH, Fe-OH, Mg-OH and CO₃²⁻ spectral absorption features, band ratios B5/B2, B13/B9, B13/B14 and B14/B16 were proposed for enhancement of ferrous and ferric iron bearing minerals, sericite, epidote, chlorite, and dolomite. Combination of field observations, geological map and high resolution spectra of rock samples were used to verify the results. Band ratio B5/B2, B13/B9, B13/B14 gray scale images respectively illustrated that Fe³⁺-rich minerals are occurring in granite, the Fe²⁺-rich minerals are enhanced in iron ore, green schist, and diorite units, and sericite is occurring in hydrothermally altered granite and iron ore. Since the Fe/Mg-OH vibrational mode in chlorite-epidote and spectral absorption feature of CO₃²⁻ in dolomite occur in B16, the B14/B16 ratio highlighted chlorite-epidote-rich green schist, diorite and dolomitic marble. The false color composite image of B13/B14, B13/B9, and B14/B16 as RGB produced a large scale map which successfully discriminated the rock types and accompanying alteration minerals. This study demonstrated that WV-3 data have efficient spectral resolution to discriminate alteration minerals with Fe³⁺, Fe²⁺, Al-OH and Fe/Mg-OH or CO₃²⁻ spectral absorption features.