SUBPIXEL UNMIXING TECHNIQUE FOR DETECTION OF USEFUL MINERAL RESOURCES USING HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGERY

Most mineral resources are located in subsurface but mineral exploration starts with a step of investigation in wide-area to find evidence of buried ores. Conventional technique for exploration on wide-area as a preliminary survey is an observation using naked eyes by geologist or chemical analysis using lots of samples obtained from target area. Hyperspectral remote sensing can overcome those subjective and time consuming survey and can produce mineral resources distribution map. Precise resource map requires information of mineral distribution in a subpixellevel because mineral is distributed as rock components or narrow veins. But most hyperspectral data is composed of pixels of several meters or more than ten meters scale. We reviewed subpixel unmixing algorithms which have been used for geological field and tested detection ability with Hyperion imagery, geological map and seven spectral curves of mineral and rock specimens which were obtained from study areas.