Mapping spatial variations of iron oxide by-product minerals from EO-1 Hyperion

The classification results showed that the mine waste deposits can be easily mapped using available standard algorithms such as Mahalanobis Distance. The results obtained from the SFF method suggest that there is an abundance of different minerals such as alunite, copiapite, ferrihydrite, goethite, jarosite, and gypsum within the mine area. From a total number of 754 pixels that cover the mine area, 43 pixels were classified as sulphide and carbonate minerals and 711 pixels remained unclassified, showing no abundance of any dominant mineral within the area presented by these pixels.