Satellite Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Mineral Maps of Australia Unmixed of Their Green and Dry Vegetation Components: Implications for Mapping (Paleo) Sediment Erosion–Transport–Deposition Processes

The 2012 satellite ASTER geoscience maps of Australia were designed to provide public, web-accessible, and spatially comprehensive surface mineralogy for improved mapping and solutions to geoscience challenges. However, a number of the 2012 products were clearly compromised by variable green and/or dry vegetation cover. Here, we show a strategy to first estimate and then unmix the contributions of both these vegetation components to leave, as residual, the target surface mineralogy. The success of this unmixing process is validated by (i) visual suppression/removal of the regional climate and/or local fire-scar vegetation patterns; and (ii) pixel values more closely matching field sample data. In this process, we also found that the 2012 spectral indices used to gauge the AlOH content, AlOH composition, and water content can be improved. The updated (new indices and vegetation unmixed) maps reveal new geoscience information, including: (i) regional “wet” and “dry” zones that appear to express “deep” geological characters often expressed through thick regolith cover, with one zone over the Yilgarn Craton spatially anti-correlated with Archaean gold deposits; (ii) a ~1000 km wide circular feature over the Lake Eyre region defined by a rim of abundant “muscovite” that appears to coincide with opal deposits; (iii) a N–S zonation across the western half of the continent defined by abundant muscovite in the south and kaolinite in the north, which appears to reflect opposing E ↔ W aeolian sediment transport directions across the high-pressure belt; (iv) various paleo-drainage networks, including those over aeolian sand covered the “lowlands” of the Canning Basin, which are characterized by low AlOH content, as well as those over eroding “uplands”, such as the Yilgarn Craton, which have complicated compositional patterns; and (v) a chronological history of Miocene barrier shorelines, back-beach lagoons, and alluvial fans across the Eucla Basin, which, to date, had proved elusive to map using other techniques, with potential implications for heavy mineral sand exploration. Here, we explore the latter three issues.