Remote Sensing Project 2017

The White Sand Dunes of New Mexico is largest gypsum based dune field in the world. The origins of this area pose great interest for remote sensing analysis. The topic of concern with our project is to identify the possible origins of where most of the gypsum derived from. Through literature, we have identified possible shorelines of where a lake once existed hundreds of thousands of years ago. The reason why gypsum is so prevalent in this area is because of the geologic structure of the area. During the Permian era the area was presumed to have once been a giant lake, and because this is a natural forming basin it does not flow to the sea the source of the gypsum settled on potential shorelines that we will try and find using hyperspectral data that has been captured in the region. Using the hyperspectral data, we hope to identify key identifiers within the reflectance data using know elements in the area. By using spectral angle mapper and spectral unfixing we will show the specific minerals within the dunes and where most of those minerals originated from.