SEBASS hyperspectral thermal infrared data: surface emissivity measurement and mineral mapping

This study focuses on mapping surface minerals using a new hyperspectral thermal infrared (TIR) sensor: the spatially enhanced broadband array spectrograph system (SEBASS). SEBASS measures radiance in 128 contiguous spectral channels in the 7.5- to 13.5-μm region with a ground spatial resolution of 2 m. In September 1999, three SEBASS flight lines were acquired over Virginia City and Steamboat Springs, Nevada. At-sensor data were corrected for atmospheric effects using an empirical method that derives the atmospheric characteristics from the scene itself, rather than relying on a predicted model. The apparent surface radiance data were reduced to surface emissivity using an emissivity normalization technique to remove the effects of temperature. Mineral maps were created with a pixel classification routine based on matching instrument- and laboratory-measured emissivity spectra, similar to methods used for other hyperspectral data sets (e.g. AVIRIS). Linear mixtures of library spectra match SEBASS spectra reasonably well, and silicate and sulfate minerals mapped remotely, agree with the dominant minerals identified with laboratory X-ray powder diffraction and spectroscopic analyses of field samples. Though improvements in instrument calibration, atmospheric correction, and information extraction would improve the ability to map more pixels, these hyperspectral TIR data nevertheless show significant advancement over multispectral thermal imaging by mapping surface materials and lithologic units with subtle spectral differences in mineralogy.