Mapping mineral abundances of the Musgrave Block, South Australia, using airborne hyperspectral VNIR-SWIR data

A large area survey of 32 contiguous airborne hyperspectral HyMap image flightlines were acquired over outcropping crystalline basement units of the Proterozoic Giles Complex in the Musgrave Province of South Australia. Rainfall prior to the survey was sufficient to stimulate growth of vegetation in an environment recognised as typically arid. As a consequence, vegetation signatures are present in most pixel spectra obscuring most of the mineralogical information. Nevertheless, new geological information is affected by these data, especially in areas broadly mapped as altered granites. Minerals identified in the HyMap spectra include Fe-chlorite, Mg-chlorite, amphibole, well-ordered kaolinite and kaolin associated with bound water. White mica is poorly developed. This mineralogy is consistent with alteration of ferromagnesian host rocks, some of which is constrained to a network of fractures associated with an apparent dextral fault that parallels other structures mapped in the area