Identification of AI-Generated Rock Thin-Section Images by Feature Analysis under Data Scarcity

An important aspect of geoscience and energy research is the analysis of microscopic images, where the assessment of rock properties combines imaging methods with numerical analysis. Given the significant advancements in generative artificial intelligence technologies in recent years, which have enabled the creation of realistic images, a need arises to assess the authenticity of synthetic visual data compared to authentic geological data images. This article evaluates the potential for identifying artificially generated microscopic rock images. Synthetic images were generated using a widely accessible diffusion model, based on real training data. Expert evaluation noted high realism, though some structural and rock-type differences remained detectable. In the study, image descriptors were analyzed to assess their usefulness in distinguishing synthetic data from real data. Discriminative feature selection was conducted, and the effectiveness of various classification models based on the selected parameter sets was compared. The study also proposes a heuristic coefficient demonstrating discriminative potential for the analyzed images. The results confirm the feasibility of building classifiers for synthetic images that could aid in detecting generated visual data in geological and petrographic research. They also serve as a foundation for further exploration of the importance of individual features in such applications.