What are the Best Radar Wavelengths, Incidence Angles, and Polanzations for Discrimination among Lava Flows and Sedimentary Rocks? A Statistical Approach

Linear discriminant analysis of multifrequency and multipolarization radar scatterometer data of lava flows and sedimentary rocks indicates that the lava flows sampled at the Snake River Plain, Idaho, and the sedimentary formations sampled at the San Rafael Swell, Utah, can be discriminated from one another. The necessary radar backscatter data, and optimum wavelengths, polarizations, and incidence angles among those available for these problems are indicated by the discriminant analysis program. For separation of the lava flows, shorter wavelengths and smaller incidence angles are best. For the sedimentary rocks, conversely, the longer wavelengths and somewhat larger incidence angles are preferred. Separation among the lava flows was slightly better using horizontally polarized data, while vertical polarization gave better separation with the sedimentary rocks. The method developed here may provide a rationale for user selection tion of operating parameters for advanced radar systems such as the Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) and that proposed for the Earth Observation System (EOS). The analysis is being extended to other study sites for which we have scatterometer data to determine the generality of the results reported here.