Regional-scale mapping of iron oxide minerals with Sentinel-2 MSI
This MSc topic is in the research line of Mr. Bruno Portela.
Many mineral assemblages that are interesting for providing raw materials for the energy transition (lithium, rare earth minerals) cannot be detected by multi-spectral techniques directly. Iron oxide mineralogy, however, can be mapped with multi-spectral systems, and iron oxide mineral maps can be used as proxies for mapping other raw minerals. In addition, iron oxides can be an indicator for pollution from acid mine drainage and are also an indicator of soil fertility. There are many reasons to map these materials!
Recent publications show that the bands of Sentinel-2 are positioned such that it can be used for mapping iron oxides. The data is suited to map large areas in a multi-temporal mode and is worldwide freely available. The 20x20 meter pixel size of Sentinel-2 however means that pixels can contain mixtures of different iron minerals, as well as mixtures with other surface cover such as vegetation. This MSc topic focuses on developing spectral indices that still can distinguishing different iron oxides that are spectrally active in the VNIR wavelength region.
The following research questions could be considered:
- Which iron-bearing minerals can be distinguished in multi-spectral VNIR data?
- How well can we distinguish different iron minerals in 20x20 meter Sentinel-2 data?
- What is the influence of vegetation in reflectance spectra of iron oxides?
The topic is a desktop study involving multi-spectral and hyperspectral satellite data and Google Earth Engine. The goal would be to do a regional-scale mapping of a known area containing critical raw materials, and benchmark results against satellite hyperspectral data such as Prisma, Enmap or DESIS.
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.022
- https://doi.org/10.3390/rs71012635
- https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010076