Comparison of multi-temporal ASTER images for hydrothermal alteration mapping using a fractal-aided SAM method

The shortwave infrared (SWIR) spectral bands of four multi-temporal images acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra platform were analysed for evaluating the effects of acquisition properties and atmospheric pre-processing levels on the resulting hydrothermal alteration maps a using the fractal-aided Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) method. Three ASTER level-1B products covering the Sar Cheshmeh area in Iran were used for hydrothermal alteration mapping. These images were converted to surface reflectance using the Fast Line-of-sight Atmospheric Analysis of Spectral Hypercubes (FLAASH) method. The low reflectance of band 5 of the level-1B products was compensated for by using the spectra of collected rock samples. Level-2 (AST2B05S) SWIR ASTER images that had already been processed were also used. Reference spectra of the main hydrothermal alteration types were extracted for each product. The threshold angles were determined using the real value–area (RV–A) fractal technique. Then, SAM classification was carried out to map hydrothermal alteration for every product. It is concluded that the level-1B products that had been converted to reflectances have a better spectral contrast than the AST2B05S product. Summer images with lower tilt angle and higher solar elevation should be used to increase the accuracy of the image classification and minimize the effect of vegetation on the spectra of index minerals. By comparing the resulting hydrothermal alteration maps with known alteration types using a confusion matrix, it was shown that the application of the RV–A fractal technique to produce less biased threshold angles increases the accuracy of SAM classification.