Frequency fraction and spatial distribution of clay minerals detection by sub-pixel classification of ASTER data, case study, Esteghlal mine of Abadeh

Esteghlal fireclay mine, northern Abadeh, with dominant composition of kaolinite and pyrophyllite, and annual production of over a million tons, is one of the largest sedimentary deposits in Iran. Linear Spectral Unmixing (LSU) and Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF) processes were applied on the VNIR + SWIR dataset of ASTER for identifying the frequency fraction and distribution of clay minerals in this mine. Sub-pixel frequency assessment of ASTER data showed that distribution of pixels with higher fractions belong to the kaolinite and pyrophyllite, outcropped in two different parts of the mine. Comparison of LSU and MTMF output results showed that MTMF is more reliable to determining the relative fraction of clay minerals at the study area.