Application of Heat Capacity Mapping Mission data to regional geologic analysis for mineral and energy resource evaluation
Heat Capacity Mapping Mission thermal-inertia images of a diversity of terrains and geologic settings were examined in conjunction with topographic, geologic, geophysical, and LANDSAT data. The images were found to have attributes similar to bedrock maps. In the Cascades region, two new features were identified and a method was developed to characterize regional terranes using linear feature data. Two northeast-trending Lineaments were discovered in the Overthrust Belt of Montana and Idaho. The longer of the two extends from the Idaho-Oregon border, through the Idaho batholith and across the Lewis thrust. It coincides, along segments, with mapped faults and an aeromagnetic pattern change. A major lineament crossing the Colorado Plateau and the Southern Rocky Mountians was detected on several thermal-inertial images and evidence was found for the existence of a geologic discontinuity. Vegetation-covered areas in Richfield and the Silver City quadrangle (Arizona and New Mexico) displayed thermal-inertia differences within heavily vegetation areas although no apreciable correlation was found between vegetation cover and thermal inertia. Resistant ridges and knolls have high thermal inertias and thermal-inertia contrasts occurred at lithologic and fault contacts. In the heavy vegetated Pinaleno Mountains, Arizona, a Lithologic unit obscured on LANDSAT MSS data due to the vegetation cover, exhibited a thermal-inertia contrast with its surroundings.