Emerged areas around open-system lakes developing marshes are sensitive environments to climate changes. Under a semi-arid climate the sediments oxidize and dehydrate developing red colors due to iron bearing minerals. Mineral climate-dependent mixtures are spatially traced using hyperspectral imagery. Iron oxide mixtures have been mapped along differentially dehydrated units in the past 2000 years using DAIS spectrometer data. Spectral behavior interactions and masking from iron and carbonate mixtures suffering desiccation on the sands are described on the imagery and laboratory spectra. Four morphological sandy units can be distinguished, located at different height from the lake coast-line. These units are related to terraces, eolian deposits and desiccated areas, and appear as both continuous and remnant sparse encased surfaces showing different stages of landscape development. Mineralogical variations on iron oxides and hydroxides developed when sediments are exposed to the atmosphere are easily recorded in the visible and thermal infrared wavelength range in the imagery. Quantitative evaluation of soil color and related mineralogy is attempted.

Date Published: 13 February 2004
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 5239, Remote Sensing for Environmental Monitoring, GIS Applications, and Geology III, (13 February 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.511810

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5239:
Remote Sensing for Environmental Monitoring, GIS Applications, and Geology III
Manfred Ehlers; Hermann J. Kaufmann; Ulrich Michel, Editor(s)