HYPERSPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF ASTER AND LANDSAT 8 DATA TO CHARACTERIZE EL-MISSIKAT URANIUM BEARING SILICEOUS VEINS AND THEIR ANALOGY TO EL-ERADIYA AND GATTAR GRANITES, EASTERN DESERT, EGYPT

This work aims to apply spectral image processing techniques that have been used often to process
hyperspectral data to analyze multispectral ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and
Reflection Radiometer) and Landsat 8 data for mapping uranium-bearing siliceous rocks within El-
Missikat granite. These techniques succeeded effectively in recognition of the same features at El-Eradiya
and Gattar granites. Siliceous materials (siliceous sinter), as used here, is a spectral group of SiO2 minerals
including opal, chalcedony and cristobalite derived from hydrothermal fluids and/or the decomposition of
granite. The spectral identification of such minerals depend mainly on the uses a hydration absorption
feature that characterize some hydrated silica at wavelength region of 2.2- to 2.4-μm.
The effectiveness of the hyperspectral analysis techniques used to compare a pixel spectrum with the
spectra of known pure materials, extracted from the spectral end member selection procedures, including
minimum noise fraction (MNF), pixel purity index (PPI) and n-dimensional visualization. Among those
of the spectral analysis algorithms employed, spectral angle mapping (SAM) and matched filtering (MF)
produced accurate classifications that were close to the ground reference data. The hyperspectral
analysis of an ASTER and Landsat 8 dataset covering the studied areas, has successfully effective in
detecting lithological units than traditional multispectral analysis procedures.
Field validation and laboratory investigation were carried out to prove and support the results
obtained from ASTER and Landsat 8 processing. These results succeeded to delineate additional sites
of siliceous materials that could be a promising areas to host the uranium mineralization.