Spectral discrimination of hydrothermally altered materials using ASTER short-wave infrared bands: Evaluation in a tropical savannah environment

ASTER short-wave infrared bands were used to investigate the spectral discrimination of hydrothermally altered materials, based on the presence of minerals with diagnostic spectral features in wavelengths around 2200 nm (e.g. kaolinite and K-micas). Due to the presence of widespread albitized-greisenized materials, the Serra do Mendes granitoid, located in area of tropical savannah environment in Central Brazil, was selected for this study. The Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) technique was used as an attempt to detect the presence of hydroxyl-bearing minerals in the domain of the hydrothermally altered materials. Results indicated that areas of altered materials were discriminated from the surrounding mainly due to the high overall reflectance of the whitish lithosols in these areas. The detection of hydroxyl-bearing minerals was blurred by the presence of a sparse grass cover in the alteration zone, which caused a slight increase in the SAM classification angles. As a consequence, the remote detection of hydroxyl-bearing minerals was restricted to a small number of pixels from barren areas. Results indicate that, for the environmental conditions of the study area, ASTER data are more efficacious for spectral characterization of rock–soil-vegetation associations than for the detection of alteration-derived minerals.