Mineral Mapping Using Simulated Worldview-3 Short-Wave-Infrared Imagery

WorldView commercial imaging satellites comprise a constellation developed by DigitalGlobe Inc. (Longmont, CO, USA). Worldview-3 (WV-3), currently planned for launch in 2014, will have 8 spectral bands in the Visible and Near-Infrared (VNIR), and an additional 8 bands in the Short-Wave-Infrared (SWIR); the approximately 1.0–2.5 μm spectral range. WV-3 will be the first commercial system with both high spatial resolution and multispectral SWIR capability. Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data collected at 3 m spatial resolution with 86 SWIR bands having 10 nm spectral resolution were used to simulate the new WV-3 SWIR data. AVIRIS data were converted to reflectance, geographically registered, and resized to the proposed 3.7 and 7.5 m spatial resolutions. WV-3 SWIR band pass functions were used to spectrally resample the data to the proposed 8 SWIR bands. Characteristic reflectance signatures extracted from the data for known mineral locations (endmembers) were used to map spatial locations of specific minerals. The WV-3 results, when compared to spectral mapping using the full AVIRIS SWIR dataset, illustrate that the WV-3 spectral bands should permit identification and mapping of some key minerals, however, minerals with similar spectral features may be confused and will not be mapped with the same detail as using hyperspectral systems. The high spatial resolution should provide detailed mapping of complex alteration mineral patterns not achievable by current multispectral systems. The WV-3 simulation results are promising and indicate that this sensor will be a significant tool for geologic remote sensing.