Master's Theses

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Date of Award

Summer 2002

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Geosciences

Advisor

Ken Neuhauser

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine whether hyper-spectral remote sensing can identify brine contamination in soils. Specifically the study investigated the use of Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer data for identifying brine spills. The study area is in north-central Oklahoma where the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted the remote sensing flight. The data were processed through various calibration and classification techniques for evaluation of accuracy of identification of brine spills using hyperspectral analysis. A variety of spectral techniques were used to attempt to detect brine-contaminated soil in Oklahoma. Overall, the performance of the various calibration and classification techniques used in this study was poor. The techniques did not prove effective and the most likely cause is that the major difference between contaminated and uncontaminated soil is a slight difference in albedo, rendering spectral-band techniques useless. X-ray diffraction analysis identified quartz and halite in the contaminated soil in the non-contaminated soil only quartz was identified. These results show that halite is present but cannot be verified using a hyperspectral based method of remote sensing. The observable similarity of the contaminated and uncontaminated area may be inherent in the brine detection problem, or may be an artifact of the particular condition of this study.

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© 2002 Daryl W. Ebbert

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