Lineaments Extraction and Analysis Using Sentinel 2B, Sentinel 1A Data and ALOS PALSAR DEM: A Case Study of the Igoudrane Region, Jbel Saghro, Eastern Anti-Atlas, Morocco

Abstract

The remote sensing techniques have been used several years ago in many geological studies, and have proved their utility especially in lineament extraction. During this research, we extracted the lineaments automatically as well as manually in the Igoudrane region, Imiter inlier, eastern Anti-Atlas. The purpose of this research is to extract and map lineaments in the study area, and then compare the results provided, where the VNIR bands of Sentinel-2B, Sentinel-1A and the ALOS PALSAR DEM (12.5 m) were used. The directional filters were applied to the VNIR bands of Sentinel-2B into six directions, in the interest of attaining a significant lineament contrast. The VH and VV radar data provided the greatest number of lineaments (7243) by LINE module algorithm, while the shaded relief and slope were applied to the ALOS PALSAR DEM, which gave a higher number of lineaments than the VNIR bands of Sentinel-2B (4699, 4647 respectively). The manual extraction on the VV and VH polarizations yielded 441 lineaments, while the VNIR bands of Sentinel-2B provided 453 lineaments. Furthermore, the main orientations of the lineaments are NE-SW, ENE-WSW and NNE-SSW. The lineaments extracted from the VNIR bands (Sentinel-2B) and ALOS PALSAR’s DEM exhibited an optimal match along with the fractures digitized manually and from the geological maps of the research area. The results revealed that Sentinel-1 data is less efficient than ALOS PALSAR DEM data, especially in arid regions where the capacity of DEM radar waves to penetrate rises for thinner sedimentary layers, offering deeper information.