Mineral Exploration and Alteration Zone Mapping in Eastern Desert of Egypt Using Aster Data

This paper proposes a method to find gold deposits in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Different methods including various classification methods, principle component transform (PCT), band ratios, and a constrained energy minimization technique are evaluated for their performance for hydrothermal alteration zone mapping. First, these techniques are carried out to highlight known gold deposits over the Sukari Gold Mine. Then, the techniques are applied to different areas to search for sites that have similar spectral and other signatures in the processed images, with the idea that they may have conditions similar to those of the known gold deposits. Next, the newest methods in remote sensing of alteration zones and related minerals are discussed and compared with classic techniques, and the most effective techniques are identified. Finally, test sites using known gold deposits at Sukari and Abu Marawat are used to calibrate the techniques with the other gold concessions in the region. Results show that produced gold related alteration zone maps derived from newly developed methods in this research are in excellent agreement with known signatures of gold mines in the region and published geologic and minerals maps. The paper concludes that mineral information extraction based on n-dimensional spectral feature space analysis using the most sensitive wavelengths of altered minerals are the best method to map alteration zones associated with gold mineralization.